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INTRODUCTION  OF  TOBACCO 
INTO  EUROPE 


BY 

BERTHOLD  LAUFER 
Curator  of  Anthropology 


Anthropology 
Leaflet  19 


FIELD  MUSEUM  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY 

CHICAGO 

1924 


The  Anthropological  Leaflets  of  Field  Museum  are  designed  to 
give  brief,  non-technical  accounts  of  some  of  the  more  interesting 
beliefs,  habits  and  customs  of  the  races  whose  life  is  illustrated 
in  the  Museum's  exhibits. 

LIST  OF  ANTHROPOLOGY  LEAFLETS  ISSUED  TO  DATE 

1.  The  Chinese  Gateway $  .10 

2.  The  Philippine  Forge  Group 10 

3.  The  Japanese  Collections 25 

4.  New  Guinea  Masks 25 

5.  The  Thunder  Ceremony  of  the  Pawnee 25 

6.  The  Sacrifice  to  the  Morning  Star  bj'  the 

Skidi  Pawnee 10 

7.  Purification  of  the  Sacred  Bundles,  a  Ceremony 

of  the  Pawnee 10 

8.  Annual  Ceremony  of  the  PawTiee  Medicine  Men      .         .10 

9.  The  Use  of  Sago  in  New  Guinea 10 

10.  Use  of  Human  Skulls  and  Bones  in  Tibet        ...         .10 

11.  The  Japanese  New  Year's  Festival,  Games 

and  Pastimes 25 

12.  Japanese  Costume 25 

13.  Gods  and  Heroes  of  Japan 25 

14.  Japanese  Temples  and  Houses 25 

15.  Use  of  Tobacco  among  North  American  Indians  .  .25 
*16.  Use  of  Tobacco  in  Mexico  and  South  America  .  .  .25 
*17.  Use  of  Tobacco  in  New  Guinea 10 

18.  Tobacco  and  Its  Use  in  Asia 25 

19.  Introduction  of  Tobacco  into  Europe 25 

*20.     The  Japanese  Sword  and  Its  Decoration 25 

D.  C.  DAVIES 

DIRECTOR 
FIELD  MUSEUM  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY 
CHICAGO,  U.  S.  A. 


•In  preparation — November  1924. 


\'V:^  I  2  1925 

JNlYtHSlTY  OF  ItUNOlS 
Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

DEPARTMENT  OF  ANTHROPOLOGY 
Chicago.  1924 

Lbafur  Number  19 

The  Introduction  of  Tobacco  into  Europe 

In  the  four  preceding  leaflets  the  history  and  use 
of  tobacco  in  the  two  Americas,  in  Melanesia,  and  in 
Asia  have  been  briefly  discussed.  It  may  therefore 
not  be  amiss  to  close  this  series  with  a  review  of  the 
early  history  of  tobacco  in  Europe,  particularly  in 
England, — a  subject  of  general  interest. 

The  white  man  learned  the  use  of  tobacco  from 
the  aborigines  of  America  soon  after  the  discovery, 
and  the  European  colonists  who  flocked  to  America 
rapidly  adopted  the  habit  of  smoking.  Las  Casas  was 
already  compelled  to  admit  that  the  Spaniards  on  Cuba 
who  had  contracted  the  habit  could  not  be  weaned 
from  it.  Lescarbot  applies  a  similar  remark  to  the 
French  of  Canada.  "Our  Frenchmen  who  visited  the 
savages  are  for  the  most  part  infatuated  with  this  in- 
toxication of  petun  [tobacco],  so  much  so  that  they 
cannot  dispense  with  it,  no  more  than  with  eating  and 
drinking,  and  they  spend  good  money  on  this,  for  the 
good  petun  which  comes  from  Brazil  sometimes  costs 
a  dollar  (ecu)  the  pound/*  John  Hawkins  observed 
in  1564  that  the  French  in  Florida  used  tobacco  for 
the  same  purposes  as  the  natives.  A.  Thevet,  who 
visited  Brazil  in  1555-56,  noticed  the  Christians  living 
there  as  "marvelously  eager  for  this  herb  and  per- 
fume." Gabriel  Soares  de  Souza  (Noticia  do  Brazil, 
written  in  1587),  a  Portuguese  farmer,  who  lived  in 
Brazil  for  seventeen  years  from  about  1570,  informs 
us  that  tobacco  leaves  were  much  esteemed  by  the 

[97] 


2  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Indians,  Negroes  (whom  he  calls  Mamelucos),  and 
Portuguese,  who  "drank"  the  smoke  by  placing  to- 
gether many  leaves  wrapped  in  a  palm-leaf;  they 
used,  accordingly,  the  cigar.  The  unknown  author  of 
the  "Treatise  of  Brazil,"  written  in  1601  and  pub- 
lished by  Purchas,  also  describes  the  mode  of  cigar- 
smoking  in  Brazil  and  winds  up  by  sajdng,  "The 
women  also  doe  drinke  it,  but  they  are  such  as  are 
old  and  sickly,  for  it  is  verie  medicinable  unto  them, 
especially  for  the  cough,  the  head-ache,  and  the  dis- 
ease of  the  stomacke,  and  hence  come  a  great  manie 
of  the  Portugals  to  drinke  it,  and  have  taken  it  for  a 
vice  or  for  idlenesse,  imitating  the  Indians  to  spend 
daies  and  nights  about  it." 

The  Eliglish  colonists  in  Virginia  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  appropriate  the  aboriginal  custom  of  pipe- 
smoking.  Thomas  Hariot  (A  Brief  and  True  Report 
of  the  New  Found  Land  of  Virginia,  1588)  dwells 
with  enthusiasm  on  the  virtues  of  the  herb,  "which 
is  sowed  a  part  by  it  selfe  and  is  called  by  the  inhabi- 
tants uppowoc:  In  the  West  Indies  it  hath  divers 
names,  according  to  the  severall  places  and  countries 
where  it  groweth  and  is  used:  The  Spaniards  gene- 
rally call  it  Tobacco."  He  concludes,  "We  our  selves 
during  the  time  we  were  there  used  to  suck  it  after 
their  maner,  as  also  since  our  returne,  and  have 
found  manie  rare  and  wonderful  experiments  of  the 
vertues  thereof;  of  which  the  relation  woulde  require 
a  volume  by  it  selfe :  the  use  of  it  by  so  manie  of  late, 
men  and  women  of  great  calling  as  else,  and  some 
learned  Phisitions  also,  is  sufficient  witnes."  "Suck- 
ing it  after  their  maner"  means  pipe-smoking  which 
Hariot  himself  describes  as  follows:  "The  leaves 
thereof  being  dried  and  brought  into  powder:  they 
use  to  take  the  fume  or  smoke  thereof  by  sucking  it 
through  pipes  made  of  claie  into  their  stomacke  and 
heade." 

[98] 


13 


15  5i 


Introduction  of  Tobacco  into  England 


The  following  passages  show  that  the  English 
settlers  soon  proceeded  to  make  their  own  pipes. 
George  Waymouth,  who  visited  Virginia  in  1605,  has 
the  following  notice:  "They  gave  us  the  best  wel- 
come they  could,  spreading  deere  skins  for  us  to  sit 
on  the  ground  by  their  fire,  and  gave  us  of  their 
tobacco  in  our  pipes,  which  was  most  excellent,  and 
so  generally  commended  of  us  all  to  be  as  good  as  any 
we  ever  tooke,  being  the  simple  leafe  without  any 
composition,  very  strong  and  of  a  pleasant  sweete 
taste:  they  gave  us  some  to  carry  to  our  captaine, 
whom  they  called  our  Bashabe,  neither  did  they  re- 
quire any  thing  for  it;  but  we  would  receive  nothing 
from  them  without  remuneration."  George  Percy, 
who  visited  southern  Virginia  in  1606,  describes  an 
entertainment  given  in  his  honor  by  the  savages. 
"After  we  were  well  satisfied  they  gave  us  of  their 
tabacco,  which  they  tooke  in  a  pipe  made  artificially 
of  earth  as  ours  are,  but  far  bigger,  with  the  bowle 
fashioned  together  with  a  piece  of  fine  copper." 

INTRODUCTION  AND  EARLY  CULTIVATION 
OF  TOBACCO  IN  ENGLAND 

The  four  Atlantic  states — England,  France,  Portu- 
7  gal,  and  Spain — received  tobacco  directly  from 
^America.  The  subject,  as  far  as  England  is  con- 
^>^cerned,  forms  a  chapter  independent  of  the  rest  of 
^Europe. 

^  In  considering  the  history  of  tobacco  in  England, 
^'we  must  distinguish  between  the  introduction  of  the 
^tobacco  plant  or  plants  and  the  custom  of  smoking 
tobacco,  for  it  seems  that  tobacco  was  known  or  even 
'^'planted  in  England  a  number  of  years  before  smok- 
Mng  was  practised.  The  two  earliest  English  bota- 
i  nists,  John  Gerard  (1597)  and  John  Parkinson  (1640), 

[»] 


4  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

are  familiar  with  the  two  principal  species,  Nicotiana 
tabacum  (in  two  varieties)  and  Nicotiana  rustica,  so 
that  at  the  outset  we  should  be  justified  in  assuming 
at  least  two  introductions.  Such  indeed  are  upheld 
by  tradition. 

Edmund  Howes,  in  his  continuation  of  John 
Stow's  "Annales  or  Generall  Chronicle  of  England" 
(1631,  p.  1038),  states,— 

"Tobacco  was  first  brought  and  made  known  in 
England  by  Sir  lohn  Hawkins,  about  the  yeare  1565, 
but  not  used  by  Englishmen  in  many  yeeres  after, 
though  at  this  day  commonly  used  by  most  men,  and 
many  women." 

Hawkins  returned  from  his  second  voyage  to  the 
West  Indies  on  the  20th  of  September,  1565,  and  had 
become  familiar  with  tobacco  and  smoking  in  Florida. 
John  Sparke  the  Younger,  who  wrote  the  account  of 
this  voyage  (published  by  Hakluyt  in  1589),  writes 
that  Hawkins,  ranging  along  the  coast  of  Florida  for 
fresh  water  in  July,  1565,  came  upon  the  French  settle- 
ment there  under  Laudoniere,  and  continues  thus: 
"The  Floridians  when  they  travell  have  a  kind  of 
herbe  dryed,  which  with  a  cane,  and  an  earthen  cup 
in  the  end,  with  fire,  and  the  dried  herbs  put  together, 
do  sucke  thoro  the  cane  the  smoke  thereof,  which 
smoke  satisfieth  their  hunger,  and  therewith  they 
live  foure  or  five  days  without  meat  or  drinke,  and 
this  all  the  Frenchmen  used  for  this  purpose:  yet  do 
they  holde  opinion  withall,  that  it  causeth  water  and 
fleame  to  void  from  their  stomacks."  This  is  the 
earliest  English  notice  of  tobacco.  It  would  be  amaz- 
ing if  Hawkins  and  his  companions  should  not  have 
imitated  this  custom,  and  Hawkins  may  therefore 
have  taken  specimens  of  Nicotiana  rustica  and  its 
seeds  from  Florida  to  England  in  1565.    It  was  from 

[100] 


Introduction  of  Tobacco  into  England  5 

Florida,  as  will  be  seen,  that  the  plant  was  also  intro- 
duced into  Portugal  and  from  Portugal  into  France. 
It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  Howes' 
statement  is  not  coeval  with  the  event  to  which  he 
refers,  but  was  drafted  sixty-five  years  afterwards. 
In  StoVs  "Annales"  it  is  entirely  absent.  It  is  there- 
fore not  consistent  with  the  facts,  as  some  authors 
have  done,  to  attribute  this  and  the  data  that  follow 
below,  contained  in  a  book  of  1631,  to  Stow,  who  died 
in  1606.  Nor  is  Howes'  assertion,  as  has  been  argued, 
corroborated  by  Taylor,  the  water-poet,  who  in  a  post- 
script to  his  versified  Life  of  Thomas  Parr  says  that 
tobacco  was  first  brought  into  England  in  1565  by 
Hawkins,  adding,  "It  is  a  doubtful  question  whether 
the  devil  brought  tobacco  into  England  in  a  coach,  for 
both  appeared  about  the  same  time."  Taylor's  work 
was  published  in  1635,  and  his  plea  for  Hawkins  is 
simply  copied  from  Howes.  Nevertheless  I  am  under 
the  impression  that  Howes  honestly  reproduced  a  tra- 
dition which  was  current  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
sixteenth  century  and  had  come  down  to  his  own 
time.  It  is  far  less  this  tradition  itself,  however,  than 
the  total  of  the  circumstantial  evidence  which  compels 
us  to  pin  our  faith  in  Hawkins  as  the  introducer  of 
Nicotiana  nistica;  for  this  species  was  grown  in 
England  in  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
so  that  its  presence  in  English  soil  must  be  accounted 
for  in  a  reasonable  manner.  Dr.  Brushfield,  in  1898, 
formulated  his  opinion  thus:  "Tobacco  was  first  im- 
ported into  Europe  about  the  year  1560,  but  not  into 
England  until  a  few  years  later.  The  first  English- 
man to  notice  it  was  Sir  J.  Hawkins  in  1565 ;  whether, 
however,  he  brought  any  to  this  country  is  unknown, 
most  probably  he  did,  the  other  alternative  being  its 
importation  from  Spain."  In  this  view  the  botanical 
side  of  the  question  is  disregarded,  and  Spain  cannot 
be  called  to  the  witness-stand,  as  the  Spaniards  were 

[101] 


6  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

exclusive  and  never  took  the  trouble  of  propagating 
tobacco  or  any  other  American  plant  to  any  country 
of  Europe. 

On  the  same  page  of  the  above  worK,  Howes 
makes  the  further  statement,  "Apricocks,  Mellycatons, 
Musk-Millions  and  Tobacco,  came  into  England  about 
the  20  yeare  of  Queene  Elizabeth"  [1577],  and  adds  in 
the  margin,  "Sir  Walter  Raleigh  was  the  first  that 
brought  Tobacco  into  use,  when  all  men  wondered 
what  it  meant."  The  two  different  dates  are  not  so  in- 
compatible as  it  would  seem  at  first  sight:  in  that 
great  age  of  unprecedented  colonial  expansion  and 
seafaring  enterprise  tobacco  must  assuredly  have  ar- 
rested the  attention  of  several  navigators,  and  the  fact 
that  different  species  and  varieties  of  Nicotiana  were 
grown  in  England  at  least  in  the  three  last  decades  of 
the  century  proves  that  several  introductions  at  dif- 
ferent times  and  presumably  from  different  parts  of 
America  must  have  been  effected. 

In  February,  1593,  William  Harrison  completed 
his  great  work  of  English  Chronology  two  months 
before  his  death  (April  24,  1593).  The  three  large 
folios  comprising  volumes  H-IV  of  his  "Great  Chro- 
nologie,"  which  he  says  "he  had  gathered  and  com- 
piled with  most  exquisit  diligence,"  are  preserved  in 
manuscript  in  the  Diocesan  Library  at  Derry,  Ireland. 
In  the  fourth  volume  the  events  from  A.D.  1066  up 
to  1593  are  chronicled  year  by  year,  and  in  it  the  data 
referring  to  his  own  time  are  of  particular  value. 
Extracts  covering  this  period  are  given  in  Furnivall's 
edition  of  Harrison's  Description  of  England  (pub- 
lished for  the  New  Shakspere  Society,  1876).  Here 
we  meet  (p.  LV)  under  the  year  1573  the  following 
fundamental  document  relating  to  tobacco  and  smok- 
ing, which  has  never  been  utilized  or  interpreted 
correctly  and  which  is  calculated  to  revise  all  former 
conceptions  of  the  early  history  of  tobacco  in  England. 

[102] 


Introduction  of  Tobacco  into  England  7 

"1573.  In  these  daies  the  taking-in  of  the  smoke 
of  the  Indian  herbe  called  'Tabaco,'  by  an  instrument 
formed  like  a  litle  ladell,  whereby  it  passeth  from  the 
mouth  into  the  hed  and  stomach,  is  gretlie  taken-up 
and  used  in  England,  against  Rewmes  and  some  other 
diseases  ingendred  in  the  longes  and  inward  partes, 
and  not  without  effect.  This  herbe  as  yet  is  not  so 
comon,  but  that  for  want  thereof  divers  do  practize 
for  the  like  purposes  with  the  Nicetian,  otherwise 
called  in  latine,  'Hyosciamus  Luteus,*  or  the  yellow 
henbane,  albeit,  not  without  gret  error;  for,  althoughe 
that  herbe  be  a  soverene  healer  of  old  ulcers  and  sores 
reputed  incurable  outwardly,  yet  is  not  the  smoke  or 
vapour  thereof  so  profitable  to  be  receaued  inwardly. 
The  herbe  [tobacco]  is  comonly  of  the  height  of  a 
man,  garnished  with  great  long  leaves  like  the  paciens 
[Passions  or  Patience,  Rumex  patientia  L.],  bering 
seede,  colloured,  etc.  of  quantity  like  unto,  or  rather 
lesse  then,  the  fine  margeronie ;  the  herbe  it  self  yerely 
coming  up  also  of  the  shaking  of  the  seede.  The  col- 
lour  of  the  floure  is  carnation,  resembling  that  of  the 
lemmon  in  forme :  the  roote  yellow,  with  many  fillettes, 
and  therto  very  small  in  comparison,  if  you  respect 
the  substauns  of  the  herbe." 

This  is  the  memorable  record  of  a  contemporary 
eye-witness,  who  in  his  fascinating  Description  of 
England  gives  ample  proof  of  his  keen  power  of  ob- 
servation of  customs  and  manners.  His  notice  is  based 
on  direct  and  personal  observation,  it  is  not  copied 
from  hearsay  or  books.  The  botanical  description  is 
even  unique,  almost  perfect,  considering  the  fact  that 
the  writer  was  not  a  botanist,  and  represents  the  first 
English  description  of  the  species  Nicotiana  tabacum: 
for  the  herb  is  commonly  of  the  height  of  a  man,  gar- 
nished with  great  long  leaves  and  having  flowers  of 
carnation  color — characteristics  of  Nicotiana  tabacum 
only.    The  herb  was  then  planted  in  England,  but  was 

[103] 


8  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

not  yet  common,  and  the  henbane  served  smokers  as 
a  substitute;  perhaps,  however,  Harrison's  henbane, 
as  suggested  by  the  addition  Nicetian  (i.e.  Nicotian) ,  is 
Nicotiana  rustica.  Hyoscyamus,  like  Nicotiana,  is  a 
solanaceous  plant  of  poisonous  narcotic  qualities.  The 
first  description  of  the  tobacco  plant  in  the  botanical 
literature  of  Europe  is  that  of  the  Italian  botanist  and 
physician  Pierandrea  Mattioli  (1500-77)  in  his 
"Commentarii  in  Dioscoridem"  (1565)  under  the  name 
Hyoscyamus  niger.  The  botanist  Mathias  de  Lobel, 
as  will  be  seen  presently,  affirms  tobacco  culture  in 
England  (prior  to  1576)  and  describes  pipe-smoking 
on  the  part  of  sailors  who  returned  from  America. 
Harrison  therefore  is  in  good  company  and  upheld  by 
the  testimony  of  a  contemporary.  The  tobacco  plant 
was  cultivated  in  England  in  1573,  a  year  before  the 
discovery  of  Virginia,  though  not  in  sufficient  quantity 
to  satisfy  general  demand,  and  tobacco  was  smoked 
by  Englishmen  at  that  time  from  ladle-like  instru- 
ments (perhaps  similar  to,  or  even  identical  with  the 
subsequent  pipes  consisting  of  a  half  walnut,  see  below, 
p.  3'5).  Harrison  is  the  first  English  author  who 
uses  the  word  tabaco,  the  first  who  records  the  custom 
of  smoking  tobacco  in  England,  and  the  first  who  de- 
scribes its  remedial  properties  and  effects,  and  this 
independently  of  Monardes,  whose  work  "Englished" 
by  Frampton  became  known  to  the  English  public  only 
in  1577. 

Consequently  the  date  1577  given  by  Howes  as 
that  of  the  first  introduction  cannot  be  correct  and 
must  be  discarded.  The  question  arises.  When  and  by 
whom  was  Nicotiana  tabacum,  ostensibly  described  by 
Harrison,  introduced  into  England?  At  that  time  this 
species  was  widely  disseminated  from  Mexico  to  the 
Antilles  and  South  America;  it  could  not  have  come 
to  England  from  any  point  of  North  America,  where 
Nicotiana  'rustica  was  the  principal  tobacco-furnishing 

[104] 


Introduction  of  Tobacco  into  England  9 

plant.  Nicotiana  tabacum  was  introduced  into  Vir- 
ginia from  Trinidad  not  earlier  than  about  1610  (W. 
Strachey,  Historie  of  Travaile  into  Virginia  Britan- 
nia, ed.  of  R.  H.  Major,  p.  31).  Now  it  happened 
that  on  the  9th  of  August,  1573,  Francis  Drake  re- 
turned to  Plymouth  from  his  expedition  to  the  West 
Indies.  In  the  same  year  Harrison  describes  Nicotiamxi 
tabacum  which  is  the  typical  Nicotiana  species  of  the 
West  Indies,  and  records  the  diffusion  of  tobacco- 
smoking  in  England.  There  is  no  accident  in  history, 
it  is  governed  by  the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  In  my 
estimation,  these  two  events  cannot  be  a  fortuitous  co- 
incidence, but  are  closely  interrelated.  In  my 
opinion,  therefore,  it  is  reasonable  to  conclude,  and 
there  is  no  escape  from  the  conclusion,  that  tobacco 
was  brought  to  England  again  in  1573  by  Sir  Francis 
Drake  (whether  by  himself  personally  or  by  a  sailor 
or  member  of  his  expedition  remains  immaterial),  and 
this  was  Nicotiana  tabacum,  known  to  Harrison  and 
subsequently  to  John  Gerard  as  "the  greater  sort  of 
Tabaco  brought  into  Europe  out  of  the  provinces  of 
America,  which  we  call  the  West  Indies."  There  are, 
further,  two  weighty  testimonies  to  the  effect  that 
tobacco  was  grown  in  England  long  before  1586,  the 
date  of  the  return  of  the  Virginian  colonists,  which  in 
most  books  is  erroneously  taken  for  the  year  of  the 
first  introduction  of  tobacco  and  smoking.  There  are 
the  two  botanists,  Peter  Pena  and  Mathias  de  Lobel 
(Nova  stirpium  adversaria,  Antwerp,  1576,  p.  251), 
who  state  positively  that  tobacco  was  then  cultivated 
in  Portugal,  France,  Belgium,  and  England;  and  this 
is  good  confirmation  of  Harrison's  account.  And  there 
is  Richard  Hakluyt,  who,  in  his  instructions  written 
for  an  English  factor  at  Constantinople  in  1582,  states, 
"The  seed  of  tabacco  hath  bene  brought  hither  out  of 
the  West  Indies,  it  groweth  heere,  and  with  the  herbe 
many  have  bene  eased  of  the  reumes,"  etc.    Again,  in 

[106] 


10  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

this  case,  the  West  Indies  hint  at  Nicotiana  tabacum 
and  at  the  exploits  of  Francis  Drake.  It  may  be  noted 
also  that  H.  Phillips  (History  of  Cultivated  Vege- 
tables, 1822,  Vol.  II,  p.  339)  states  that  "tobacco  was 
brought  to  England  by  Sir  Francis  Drake,  in  1570, 
who  that  year  made  his  first  expedition  against  the 
Spaniards  in  South  America." 

On  the  27th  of  July,  1586,  the  colonists  settled  in 
Virginia  by  Ralph  Lane  returned  to  England  and  dis- 
embarked at  Plymouth.  They  offered  their  astounded 
countrymen  the  queer  spectacle  of  smoking  tobacco 
from  pipes,  which  caused  a  general  sensation.  William 
Camden  (1551-1623),  the  historiographer  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  and  a  contemporary  witness,  reports  this 
event  as  follows  (Annales  rerum  anglicarum,  1615, 
p.  408 ;  or  History  of  the  Most  Renowned  and  Victori- 
ous Princess  Elizabeth,  4th  ed.,  1688,  p.  324)  :— 

"And  these  men  who  were  thus  brought  back  were 
the  first  that  I  know  of  that  brought  into  England  that 
Indian  plant  which  they  call  Tabacca  and  Nicotia,  or 
Tobacco,  which  they  used  against  crudities  being 
taught  it  by  the  Indians.  Certainly  from  that  time 
forward  it  began  to  grow  into  great  request,  and  to  be 
sold  at  an  high  rate,  whilst  in  a  short  time  many  men 
every-where,  some  for  wantonness,  some  for  health 
sake,  with  insatiable  desire  and  greediness  sucked  in 
the  stinking  smoak  thereof  through  an  earthen  pipe, 
which  presently  they  blew  out  again  at  their  nostrils: 
insomuch  as  tobacco-shops  are  now  as  ordinary  in  most 
towns  as  tap-houses  and  taverns.  So  that  the  English- 
mens  bodies,  (as  one  said  wittily,)  which  are  so 
delighted  with  this  plant,  seem  as  it  were  to  be  degene- 
rated into  the  nature  of  Barbarians,  since  they  are 
delighted,  and  think  they  may  be  cured,  with  the  same 
things  which  the  Barbarians  use." 

From  what  has  been  said  above  it  is  clear  that  the 
band  returning  from  Virginia  was  not  instrumental  in 

[106] 


Walter  Raleigh  and  Tobacco  U 

introducing  tobacco  cultivation  into  England,  for  this 
was  an  established  fact  long  before  that  time,  neither 
were  they  the  first  smokers  on  British  soil.  It  is  solely- 
popular  imagination  which  has  vividly  retained  this 
very  event  and  which  glorified  Ralph  Lane,  Richard 
Grenville,  or  Walter  Raleigh  as  the  first  smokers. 

King  James,  in  his  "Counterblaste  to  Tobacco" 
(1604),  alludes  to  the  first  introduction  but  vaguely, 
"Now  to  the  corrupted  basenesse  of  the  first  use  of  this 
Tobacco,  doeth  very  well  agree  the  foolish  and  ground- 
lesse  first  entry  thereof  into  this  Kingdome.  It  is  not 
so  long  since  the  first  entry  of  this  abuse  amongst  us 
here,  as  this  present  age  cannot  yet  very  well  remem- 
ber, both  the  first  Author,  and  the  forme  of  the  first 
introduction  of  it  amongst  us.  It  was  neither'  brought 
in  by  King,  great  Conquerour,  nor  learned  Doctor  of 
Phisicke.  With  the  report  of  a  great  discovery  for  a 
Conquest,  some  two  or  three  Savage  men,  were  brought 
in,  together  with  this  Savage  custome.  But  the  pitie 
is,  the  poore  wilde  barbarous  men  died,  but  that  vile 
barbarous  custome  is  yet  alive,  yea  in  fresh  vigor:  so 
as  it  seemes  a  miracle  to  me,  how  a  custome  springing 
from  so  vile  a  ground,  and  brought  in  by  a  father  so 
generally  hated,  should  be  welcomed  upon  so  slender 
a  warrant."  This  "father"  no  doubt  is  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  concur  with  Edward 
Arber,  who  justly  denies  that  Raleigh  had  anything  to 
do  with  the  introduction  of  the  weed  itself  or  of  the 
habit  of  smoking,  in  the  conclusion  that  "the  king  wil- 
fully or  ignorantly  falsified  the  history  of  the  intro- 
duction of  tobacco,  concocting  a  degrading  story  for 
his  purpose."  The  king's  remark  certainly  savors  of 
malice,  but  he  may  have  honestly  been  persuaded  that 
Raleigh  was  the  first  introducer. 

Henry  Buttes  (Diets  Dry  Dinner,  1599)  states, 
"Our  English  Ulisses,  renomed  Syr  Walter  Rawleigh, 
a  man  admirably  excellent  in  Navigation,  of  Natures 

[107] 


12  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

privy  counsell,  and  infinitely  read  in  the  wide  booke  of 
the  worlde,  hath  both  farre  f etcht  it,  and  deare  bought 
it:  the  estimate  of  the  treasure  I  leave  to  other."  It 
may  be  perfectly  true,  of  course,  that  Raleigh  laid  in 
a  good  supply  of  tobacco  or  secured  it  from  Hariot,  for 
his  own  consumption  and  the  use  of  his  friends.  A 
letter  of  Sir  John  Stanhope  to  Sir  G.  Carew,  dated 
January  26th,  1601,  contains  this  paragraph:  "I  send 
you  now  no  Tabacca,  because  Mr.  Secretary,  Sir  Walter, 
and  your  other  friends,  as  they  say,  have  stored  you  of 
late;  neither  have  I  any  proportion  of  it  (that)  is  good, 
but  only  am  rich  in  Aldermans  Watses  promises  of 
plenty,  wherewith  you  shall  be  acquainted,  God  will- 
ing." Raleigh  may  have  been  initiated  into  the  art  of 
smoking  by  Hariot,  who  had  been  sent  out  by  him  for 
the  purpose  of  inquiring  into  the  natural  productions 
of  Virginia.  As  indicated  above  (p.  2)  after  Harlot's 
own  report,  he  smoked  in  Virginia  and  continued  to 
smoke  on  his  return  to  England. 

E.  Arber,  in  his  valuable  notes  on  the  Introduction 
of  Tobacco  into  England  (1869),  thinks  that  we  have 
but  little  demonstrative  proof  of  Raleigh's  tobacco 
habit,  but  there  is  the  testimony  of  John  Parkinson 
(Theatrum  botanicum,  1640,  p.  711),  who  affirms  that 
he  knew  Raleigh  when  he  was  prisoner  in  the  Tower, 
and  that  Raleigh  chose  the  "English  Tabacco"  (Nico- 
tiana  rustica)  to  make  good  tobacco  of,  "which  he 
knew  so  rightly  to  cure  that  it  was  held  almost  as  good 
as  that  which  came  from  the  Indies,  and  fully  as  good 
as  any  other  made  in  England."  This  tobacco,  how- 
ever, was  not  thought  to  be  so  strong  or  sweet  for  the 
pipe,  nor  so  efficient  for  diseases. 

It  is  to  Raleigh's  merit  that  he  made  smoking 
fashionable  and  a  gentlemanly  art;  his  name  became 
identified  with  the  new  national  habit  so  thoroughly 
that  later  generations  looked  upon  him  as  a  kind  of 
patron-saint  of  the  smokers.     Every  one  is  familiar 

[108] 


Walter  Raleigh  and  Tobacco  18 

with  the  anecdote  that  Raleigh,  sitting  one  day  in  a 
deep  meditation,  with  a  pipe  between  his  lips,  bade  his 
man  to  bring  him  a  tankard  of  small  ale.  Believing 
that  his  master's  head  was  set  on  fire,  he  threw  the 
liquor  in  his  face.  In  fact,  however,  this  story  appears 
for  the  first  time  in  1611  in  the  Jests  of  Richard  Tarle- 
ton,  and  as  has  been  shown  by  G.  L.  Apperson  (Social 
History  of  Smoking,  1914),  was  fastened  on  Raleigh 
as  late  as  1708.  The  tradition  that  Raleigh  smoked  a 
pipe  or  two  on  the  morning  before  his  execution  (Octo- 
ber 29th,  1618)  appears  to  be  well  founded.  The  Dean 
of  Westminster,  who  attended  him  on  this  morning, 
testifies  that  "he  eate  his  breakfast  hertily  and  tooke 
tobacco."  Aubrey  thus  defends  his  action:  "He  took 
a  pipe  of  tobacco  a  little  before  he  went  to  the  scaffolde, 
which  some  female  (other  reading:  formal)  persons 
were  scandalized  at ;  but  I  think  'twas  well  and  properly 
donne  to  settle  his  spirits."  No  mention  of  tobacco  has 
been  discovered  in  any  of  Raleigh's  printed  works. 
His  first  testamentary  note  made  shortly  before  his 
execution  contains,  as  far  as  is  yet  known,  his  sole 
mention  of  tobacco  and  relates  to  that  which  remained 
on  his  ship  after  his  ill-fated  voyage:  "Sir  Lewis 
Stukeley  sold  all  the  tobacco  at  Plimouth  of  which,  for 
the  most  part  of  it,  I  gave  him  a  fift  part  of  it,  as  also  a 
role  for  my  Lord  Admirall  and  a  role  for  himself.  I 
desire  that  hee  give  his  account  for  the  tobacco." 

Raleigh's  tobacco-box  was  preserved  at  Leeds  in 
Yorkshire,  in  the  Museum  of  Ralph  Thoresby,  an  anti- 
quary, who  died  in  1725.  Soon  afterwards,  William 
Oldys  saw  it  there,  and  in  his  life  of  Raleigh  prefixed 
to  "The  History  of  the  World"  (1736),  describes  it 
thus:  "From  the  best  of  my  memory,  I  can  resemble 
its  outward  appearance  to  nothing  more  nearly  than 
one  of  our  modern  Muff-cases;  about  the  same  height 
and  width,  cover'd  with  red  leather,  and  open'd  at  top 
(but  with  a  hinge,  I  think)  hke  one  of  those.    In  the 

[109] 


14  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

inside,  there  was  a  cavity  for  a  receiver  of  glass  or 
metal,  which  might  hold  half  a  pound  or  a  pound  of 
tobacco;  and  from  the  edge  of  the  receiver  at  top,  to 
the  edge  of  the  box,  a  circular  stay  or  collar,  with  holes 
in  it,  to  plant  the  tobacco  about,  with  six  or  eight 
pipes  to  smoke  it  in."  R.  Thoresby  himself  (Ducatus 
Leodiensis,  1715)  gives  the  following,  slightly  different 
description:  "Sir  Walter  Ralegh's  tobacco-box,  as  it 
is  called,  but  is  rather  the  case  for  the  glass  wherein 
it  was  preserved,  which  was  surrounded  with  small 
wax  candles  of  various  colours.  This  is  of  gilded 
leather,  like  a  muff-case,  about  half  a  foot  broad  and 
thirteen  inches  high,  and  hath  cases  for  sixteen  pipes 
within  it." 

John  Gerard  (The  Herball  of  Generall  Historie  of 
Plantes,  1597)  writes  that  "there  be  two  sorts  or  kindes 
of  Tabaco,  one  greater,  the  other  lesser;  the  greater 
was  brought  into  Europe  out  of  the  provinces  of 
America,  which  we  call  the  West  Indies:  the  other 
from  Trinidada,  an  Ilande  neere  unto  the  continent  of 
the  same  Indies.  Some  have  added  a  third  sort,  and 
others  making  the  yellow  Henbane  [Nicotiana  nistica] 
for  a  kinde  thereof.  Being  now  planted  in  the  gardens 
of  Europe,  it  prospereth  very  well,  and  commeth  from 
seede  in  one  yeare  to  beare  both  fioures  and  seede. 
The  which  I  take  to  be  better  for  the  constitution  of 
our  bodies  then  that  which  is  brought  from  India 
[America]  ;  and  that  growing  in  the  Indies  better  for 
the  people  of  the  same  countrey:  notwithstanding  it 
is  not  so  thought  nor  received  of  our  Tabackians;  for 
according  to  the  English  proverbe;  Far  fecht  and 
deere  bought  is  best  for  Ladies." 

The  tobacco  of  Trinidad  is  mentioned  in  1595  by 
Robert  Dudley  (Voyage  to  the  West  Indies,  p.  22) : 
"The  dale  followinge,  beinge  Sondaie,  in  the  morninge 
came  the  salvages  with  two  canowes  aborde  us,  as  they 
had  promised  our  men,  bringinge  such  commodities 

[110] 


Eably  Cultivation  op  Tobacco  in  England  15 

with  them  as  their  islande  did  afforde,  saving  they 
brought  neither  golde  nor  pearle,  of  the  which  theare 
are  great  store  within  the  ilande,  but  tobacco,  nutes 
and  such  kinde  of  fruites,  the  which  they  exchainged 
for  knives,  bugles,  beades,  fishinge  hookes  and 
hatchetts." 

Gerard,  accordingly,  was  of  opinion  that  the 
tobacco  of  English  growth  would  best  suit  English  con- 
stitutions, as  that  of  America  would  agree  with  Ameri- 
cans; but  this  view  was  not  seconded  by  the  smokers 
of  his  day. 

Francis  Bacon  entertained  no  illusion  as  to 
English-grown  tobacco.  In  his  "Sylva  Sylvarum:  or  a 
Natural  History"  (IX,  855)  he  writes,  "Tobacco  is  a 
thing  of  great  price,  if  it  be  in  request :  for  an  acre  of 
it  will  be  worth  (as  is  affirmed)  two  hundred  pounds 
by  the  year  towards  charge.  The  charge  of  making 
the  ground  and  otherwise  is  great,  but  nothing  to  the 
profit.  But  the  English  tobacco  hath  small  credit,  as 
being  too  dull  and  earthy ;  nay,  the  Virginian  tobacco, 
though  that  be  in  a  hotter  climate,  can  get  no  credit 
for  the  same  cause:  so  that  a  trial  to  make  tobacco 
more  aromatical,  and  better  concocted,  here  in 
England,  were  a  thing  of  great  profit.  Some  have 
gone  about  to  do  it  by  drenching  the  English  tobacco 
in  a  decoction  or  infusion  of  Indian  tobacco;  but  those 
are  but  sophistications  and  toys;  for  nothing  that  is 
once  perfect,  and  hath  run  his  race,  can  receive  much 
amendment.  You  must  ever  resort  to  the  beginnings 
of  things  for  melioration." 

William  Barclay  (Nepenthes,  or  the  Vertues  of 
Tabacco,  Edinburgh,  1614)  recommends  exclusively 
tobacco  of  American  growth,  "Albeit  this  herbe  dis- 
daines  not  to  be  nourished  in  many  gardens  in  Spaine, 
in  Italie,  France,  Flanders,  Germanie  and  Brittaine, 
yet  neverthelesse  only  that  which  is  fostered  in  India 

[111] 


16  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

[America]  and  brought  home  by  Mariners  and  Traf- 
fiquers  is  to  be  used.  But  avarice  and  greedines  of 
gaine  have  moved  the  Marchants  to  apparell  some 
European  plants  with  Indian  coats,  and  to  enstall 
them  in  shops  as  righteous  and  legittime  Tabacco.  .  . 
So  that  the  most  fine,  best  and  purest  is  that  which  is 
brought  to  Europe  in  leaves,  and  not  rolled  in  pudd- 
ings, as  the  English  Navigators  first  brought  home." 
From  the  book  "The  Honestie  of  this  Age,  Proov- 
ing  by  good  circumstance  that  the  world  was  never 
honest  till  now,  by  Barnabee  Rych  Gentleman,  Servant 
to  the  Kings  most  Excellent  Maiestie"  (1614)  we 
receive  a  good  idea  of  the  increased  consumption  of 
tobacco  and  its  sale.  "There  is  not  so  base  a  groome, 
that  commes  into  an  Alehouse  to  call  for  his  pot,  but 
he  must  have  his  pipe  of  tobacco,  for  it  is  a  commoditie 
that  is  nowe  as  vendible  in  every  Taverne,  Inne,  and 
Ale  house,  as  eyther  Wine,  Ale,  or  Beare,  and  for 
Apothicaries  Shops,  Grosers  Shops,  Chaundlers  Shops, 
they  are  (almost)  never  without  company,  that  from 
morning  till  night  are  still  taking  of  Tobacco,  what  a 
number  are  there  besides,  that  doe  keepe  houses,  set 
open  shoppes,  that  have  no  other  trade  to  live  by,  but 
by  the  selling  of  Tobacco.  I  have  heard  it  tolde  that 
now  very  lately,  there  hath  bin  a  Cathalogue  taken  of 
all  those  new  erected  houses  that  have  set  uppe  that 
Trade  of  selling  Tobacco,  in  London  and  neare  about 
London :  and  if  a  man  may  beleeve  what  is  confidently 
reported,  there  are  found  to  be  upward  of  7000  houses, 
that  doth  live  by  that  trade.  I  cannot  say  whether 
they  number  Apothicaries  shoppes,  Grosers  shops,  and 
Chaundlers  shops  in  this  computation,  but  let  it  be  that 
these  were  thrust  in  to  make  uppe  the  number:  let 
us  now  looke  a  little  into  the  Vidimits  of  the  matter, 
and  let  us  cast  uppe  but  a  sleight  account,  what  the 
expence  might  be  that  is  consumed  in  this  smoakie 
vapoure. 

[112] 


Early  Cultivation  op  Tobacco  in  England  17 

"If  it  be  true  that  there  be  7000  shops,  in  and 
about  London,  that  doth  vent  Tobacco,  as  it  is  credibly 
reported  that  there  be  over  and  above  that  number :  it 
may  well  bee  supposed,  to  be  but  an  ill  customed  shoppe, 
that  taketh  not  five  shillings  a  day,  one  day  with 
another,  throughout  the  whole  yeare,  or  if  one  doth 
take  lesse,  two  other  may  take  more:  but  let  us  make 
our  account,  but  after  2  shillings  sixe  pence  a  day,  for 
he  that  taketh  lesse  than  that,  would  be  ill  able  to  pay 
his  rent,  or  to  keepe  open  his  Shop  Windowes,  neither 
would  Tobacco  houses  make  such  a  muster  as  they 
doe,  and  that  almost  in  every  Lane,  and  in  every  by- 
corner  round  about  London.  Let  us  then  reckon  thus, 
7000  halfe  Crowns  a  day,  amounteth  just  to  319,375 
poundes  a  yeare.  Summa  totalis,  All  spent  in 
smoake." 

Tobacco  then  was  an  expensive  pleasure.  Aubrey 
informs  us,  "It  was  sold  then  for  its  wayte  in  silver, 
I  have  heard  some  of  our  old  yeomen  neighbours  say, 
that  when  they  went  to  Malmesbury  or  Chippenham 
Market,  they  culled  out  their  biggest  shillings  to  lay 
in  the  scales  against  the  tobacco;  now,  the  customes 
of  it  are  the  greatest  his  majestie  hath."  Compare 
the  similar  experience  of  the  Koreans  (Leaflet  18, 
p.  10). 

C.  T.  published  in  1615  "An  Advice  how  to  plant 
Tobacco  in  England :  and  how  to  bring  it  to  colour  and 
perfection,  to  whom  it  may  be  profitable,  and  to  whom 
harmfull.  The  vertues  of  the  Hearbe  in  generall,  as 
well  in  the  outward  application  as  taken  in  Fume. 
With  the  danger  of  the  Spanish  Tobacco."  The 
author's  object  is  to  instruct  his  countrymen  in  sowing, 
planting  and  perfecting  this  drug,  as  he  viewed  with 
alarm  the  vast  sums  annually  spent  on  imported 
tobacco.  He  heard  it  reported  by  men  of  good  judg- 
ment that  there  is  paid  out  of  England  and  Ireland 
near   the   value   of   200,000   pounds   every   year   for 

[113] 


18  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

tobacco,  and  that  the  greatest  part  thereof  is  bought 
for  ready  money.  It  was  sold  for  ten  times  the  value 
of  pepper,  and  the  best  of  it,  weight  for  weight,  for 
the  finest  silver;  it  was  hard  to  find  one  pound  weight 
in  five  hundred  that  was  not  sophisticated.  We  learn 
that  tobacco  was  then  imported  into  England  from  the 
coast  of  Guiana,  from  St.  Vincents,  St.  Lucia, 
Dominica,  and  other  places,  where  it  was  directly 
bought  of  the  natives.  All  these  sorts  were  clean,  and 
so  was  that  of  St.  Domingo,  where  the  Spaniards  had 
not  yet  learned  the  art  of  sophistication.  There  was 
also  a  sort  of  Caraccas  tobacco,  which  the  Indians 
made  up  and  sold  to  the  Spaniards,  and  which  was 
wholesome  enough,  but  little  of  it  came  to  England. 
This  tobacco  is  mentioned  in  1595  by  Robert  Dudley 
(Voyage  to  the  West  Indies,  p.  48) ,  who  speaks  of  "the 
coast  of  Cracos,  called  the  high  land  of  Paria,  one  of 
the  fruitf ullest  places  in  the  worlde  for  excellent  good 
tobacco,  which  is  called  for  his  worthiness  cane  to- 
bacco." 

Under  Queen  Elizabeth  there  was  an  import  duty 
of  2d.  a  pound  on  tobacco,  raised  by  James  in  1604  to 
6s.  lOd.  (equal  to  25s.  present  value),  an  advance  of 
4000  per  cent.  This  heavy  tax  nearly  ruined  Virginia 
whose  economic  life  was  based  on  the  cultivation  of  the 
plant.  In  1611  the  imports  of  tobacco  from  Virginia 
were  reduced  to  142,085  pounds,  one-sixth  of  the  quan- 
tity previously  exported  to  England.  Aside  from  Vir- 
ginia, tobacco  was  supplied  to  England  from  the  Ber- 
mudas, where  it  had  first  been  planted  in  St.  George's 
Island  under  the  first  governor,  Moore  (1612-15),  but 
unsuccessfully  (Historye  of  the  Bermudaes,  p.  29). 
Under  the  third  governor.  Tucker  (1616-19),  some 
thirty  thousand  weight  of  tobacco  could  be  despatched 
into  the  mother-country;  this  "proveinge  good,  and 
comeinge  to  a  luckye  markett,  gave  great  contentment 
and  incouragement  to  the   undertakers   to  proceede 

[114] 


Importation  of  Tobacco  into  England  19 

lustely  in  their  plantation."  Fraudulent  practices, 
however,  were  committed,  and  the  Virginia  Company 
of  London  complained  bitterly  to  the  governor, 
Nathaniel  Butler  (1619-22),  anent  its  failure  to  sell 
a  shipment  of  very  vile  conditioned  tobacco,  neither 
well  cured,  nor  well  made  up.  The  governor,  there- 
upon, appointed  "triers  of  tobacco"  under  oath,  whose 
duty  it  was  to  examine  the  crops,  so  that  much  false 
and  bad  ware  was  burned  at  the  owners'  doors. 
According  to  an  order  issued  by  Butler  in  1621,  better 
and  poorer  qualities  had  to  be  distinguished  and  packed 
separately,  instead  of  being  mixed  with  one  another, 
as  it  had  formerly  been  done. 

In  1624  the  importation  of  tobacco  from  Spain 
and  Portugal  was  prohibited,  and  that  from  Virginia 
only  allowed,  so  that  the  colony  prospered  again.  James 
attempted  to  limit  the  supply  at  both  ends  by  ordain- 
ing that  no  planter  should  export  more  than  a  hundred 
pounds  a  year  and  by  creating  a  monopoly.  Tobacco 
could  be  sold  only  by  persons  holding  royal  warrants 
of  permission.  These  were  granted  for  life  on  pay- 
ment of  fifteen  pounds  and  an  annual  rent  of  the  same 
amount. 

The  tobacco  imported  from  Spanish  America  was 
called  "Varinaes"  up  to  1639,  and  after  that  date 
"Spanish."  It  was  obtained  from  Varina,  near  the 
foot  of  the  range  of  mountains  forming  the  west 
boundary  of  Venezuela,  and  watered  by  a  branch  of  the 
Orinoco  River.  It  was  known  in  France  as  Verine  or 
petum  musque,  and  was  introduced  into  Holland  and 
Germany  under  the  name  canaster  or  knaster  (from 
the  Spanish  canastro,  "basket"),  as  it  was  rolled  in 
cords  and  packed  in  baskets. 

Coles  wrote  in  1657,  "Tobacco  prospers  well  about 
Winscomb,  in  Glocestershire,  where  I  think  the  plant- 
ing of  it  is  now  discontinued,  because  the  store  that 
came  from  thence  was  an  hinderance  to  the  publick 

[lis] 


20  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

revenue  coming  in  for  the  custome  of  that  which  is 
brought  from  beyond  seas." 

By  various  acts  passed  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II 
(1660-85),  the  planting  of  tobacco  was  forbidden  in 
England  in  favor  of  the  colonies,  on  forfeiture  of  forty 
shillings  for  every  rod  of  ground  thus  cultivated, 
excepting  in  physic  gardens,  where  it  was  allowed  in 
quantities  not  exceeding  half  a  pole  of  ground.  Justices 
of  peace  were  empowered  to  issue  warrants  to  con- 
stables to  search  after  and  destroy  the  plants.  It 
appears  that  walnut-tree  leaves  were  used  as  a  substi- 
tute for  tobacco ;  for  the  cutting  of  such  leaves,  or  any 
other  leaves  (not  being  tobacco  leaves)  or  coloring 
them  so  as  to  resemble  tobacco  or  selling  these  mixed 
or  unmixed  for  tobacco  was  forbidden  under  a  penalty 
of  forfeiting  five  shillings  a  pound. 

J.  W.  Gent  (Systema  Agriculturae ;  the  Mystery  of 
Husbandry  Discovered,  2d  ed.,  1675,  p.  156)  gives  the 
following  interesting  information: — 

"I  thought  to  have  omitted  this  plant,  by  reason 
the  Statute-Laws  are  so  severe  against  the  planters  of 
it,  but  that  it  is  a  plant  so  much  improving  land,  and 
imploying  so  many  hands,  that  in  time  it  may  gain 
footing  in  the  good  opinion  of  the  landlord,  as  well  as 
of  the  tenant,  which  may  prove  a  means  to  obtain  some 
liberty  for  its  growth  here,  and  not  to  be  totally 
excluded  out  of  the  husbandmans  farm.  The  great 
objection  is  the  prejudice  it  would  bring  to  navigation, 
the  fewer  ships  being  imployed;  and  the  lessening  his 
Majesties  revenue.  To  which  may  be  answered,  that 
there  are  but  few  ships  imployed  to  Virginia;  and  if 
many,  yet  there  would  be  but  few  the  less ;  for  it's  not 
to  be  imagined,  that  we  should  plant  enough  to  furnish 
our  whole  nation,  and  maintain  a  trade  abroad  also: 
And  in  case  it  should  lessen  the  number  of  ships  for 
the  present,  they  would  soon  encrease  again,  as  the 
trade  of  Virginia  would  alter  into  other  commodities, 

[116] 


End  op  Tobacco  Cultivation  in  England  21 

as  silR,  wine  and  oyl,  which  would  be  a  much  better 
trade  for  them  and  us.  And  as  to  the  lessening  his 
Majesties  revenue,  the  like  imposition  may  be  laid  on 
the  same  commodity  growing  at  home,  as  if  imported 
from  abroad,  or  some  other  of  like  value  in  lieu  of  it. 
Certain  it  is,  that  the  planting  of  it  would  imploy 
abundance  of  people  in  tilling,  planting,  weeding,  dress- 
ing and  curing  of  it.  And  the  improvement  of  land  is 
very  great,  from  ten  shillings  per  acre,  to  thirty  or 
forty  pound  per  acre,  all  charges  paid:  before  the  last 
severe  laws,  many  plantations  were  in  Gloucestershire, 
Devonshire,  Somersetshire,  and  Oxfordshire,  to  the 
quantity  of  many  hundreds  of  acres. 

"Some  object,  that  our  English-tobacco  is  not  so 
good  as  the  f orreign ;  but  if  it  be  as  well  respected  by 
the  vulgar,  let  the  more  curious  take  the  other  that's 
dearer.  Although  many  are  of  opinion  that  it's  better 
than  forreign,  having  a  more  haut-gust,  which  pleas- 
eth  some ;  if  others  like  it  not,  they  may  in  the  curing 
of  it  make  it  milder,  and  by  that  means  alter  or  change 
it  as  they  please:  It  hath  been  often  sold  in  London 
for  Spanish  tobacco.  The  best  way  and  manner  of 
planting  and  curing  it,  would  be  easily  obtained  by 
experience:  many  attempting  it,  some  would  be  sure 
to  discover  the  right  way  of  ordering  of  it,  and  what 
ground  or  places  it  best  affects.  But  that  which  hath 
been  observed  is,  that  it  affects  a  rich,  deep  and  warm 
soil  well  dressed  in  the  spring  before  planting  time: 
The  young  plants  raised  from  seed  in  February  or 
March,  on  a  hot  bed,  and  then  planted  abroad  in  your 
prepared  ground,  from  whence  you  may  expect  a  very 
good  crop,  and  sometimes  two  crops  in  a  year.  The 
leaves,  when  gathered,  are  first  laid  together  on  heaps 
for  some  time,  and  then  hang*d  up  (by  threads  run 
through  them)  in  the  shade,  until  they  are  through 
dry,  and  then  put  up  and  kept,  the  longer  the  better. 
In  this,  experience  is  the  best  master." 

[m] 


22  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

THE  GREAT  TOBACCO  CONTROVERSY  IN 
ENGLAND 

As  no  other  nation,  the  English  had  to  fight  for 
their  tobacco,  no  less  than  for  their  liberty,  and  they 
put  up  a  gallant  and  heroic  fight  for  it.  The  struggle 
opened  soon  after  the  introduction  of  the  plant  and, 
producing  a  considerable  literature,  persisted  with 
varying  fortunes  throughout  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  first  detailed  account  of  tobacco  was  given  the 
English  public  in  John  Frampton's  "Joyf ull  Newes  oute 
of  the  Newe  Founde  Worlde"  (London,  1577;  other 
editions  in  1580  and  1596),  which  is  a  translation  from 
the  Spanish  of  Nicolas  Monardes'  (1493-1588)  Three 
books  on  the  drugs  of  America  (Sevilla,  1574).  The 
whole  catalogue  of  diseases  and  their  treatment  with 
various  preparations  of  tobacco  thus  became  accessible 
to  English  practitioners,  and  English  literature  on  the 
subject  is  visibly  imbued  by  this  influence.  Physi- 
cians were  busily  engaged  in  analyzing  the  properties 
of  the  herb  and  discovering  its  use  in  all  diseases;  it 
was  recommended  as  an  infallible  cure  for  nearly  every 
ill  and  as  a  preventive  of  many  ailments.  In  all  these 
discussions  the  work  of  the  doctor  of  Sevilla  remained 
the  fundamental  source.  The  reader  of  Frampton 
should  bear  in  mind  that  the  notice  entitled  "A  further 
addition  of  the  Hearbe  called  Tabaco"  (fols.  42-45)  is 
not  translated  from  Monardes,  but  from  the  French 
work  "La  Maison  rustique"  of  Liebault  (see  below, 
p.  50)  in  which  an  account  of  Nicot's  introduction  of 
tobacco  into  France  is  rendered.  Dr.  Brushfield  errs 
in  making  Monardes  acknowledge  the  assistance  he 
received  from  Nicot;  not  a  word  is  said  about  Nicot 
in  the  Spanish  original  of  Monardes. 

The  curative  virtues  of  the  tobacco  plant  are  noted 
by  two  poets.    E.  Spenser,  in  his  Fairy  Queen  (1590), 

[118] 


The  Tobacco  Controversy  in  England  23 

makes  Belphoebe  include  it  with  other  medicinal  herbs 
gathered  to  heal  Timais  (Book  III,  Canto  VI,  32)  :— 

Into  the  woods  thenceforth  in  haste  shee  went, 

To  seeke  for  hearbes  that  mote  him  remedy; 

For  she  of  hearbes  had  great  intendiment, 

Taught  of  the  Nymphe  which  from  her  infancy 

Her  nourced  had  in  trew  nobility: 

There,  whether  yt  divine  Tobacco  were, 

Or  Panachaea,  or  Polygeny, 

She  fownd,  and  brought  it  to  her  patient  deare. 

Who  al  this  while  lay  bleding  out  his  hart-blood  neare. 

This  is  the  earliest  poetical  allusion  to  tobacco  in 
English  literature.  William  Lilly,  the  Euphuist  and 
court-poet  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  a  great  smoker  him- 
self, wrote  a  play  The  Woman  in  the  Moone  (1597), 
in  which  Pandora  wounds  a  lover  with  a  spear  and 
sends  her  servant  for  herbs  to  cure  him : — 

Gather  me  balme  and  cooling  violets. 

And  of  our  holy  herb  nicotian. 

And  bring  withall  pure  honey  from  the  hive, 

To  heale  the  wound  of  my  unhappy  hand. 

Raphael  Holinshed  (The  First  and  Second  Vol- 
umes of  Chronicles,  now  newlie  augmented  and  con- 
tinued to  the  yeare  1586  by  lohn  Hooker  alias  Vowell 
and  others,  1587,  fol.  209)  appears  to  have  been  with- 
out enthusiasm  for  the  weed,  for  he  writes,  "How  doe 
men  extoll  the  use  of  Tabacco  in  my  time,  whereas  in 
truth  (whether  the  cause  be  in  the  repugnancie  of  our 
constitution  unto  the  operation  thereof,  or  that  the 
ground  doeth  alter  hir  force,  I  cannot  tell)  it  is  not 
found  of  so  great  efficacie  as  they  write." 

The  praise  of  the  healing  powers  of  tobacco  was 
sung  in  an  epigram  by  John  Davies  in  1598  (Works 
of  Marlowe,  ed.  of  F.  Cunningham,  p.  268) .  It  begins 
thus : — 

Homer  of  Moly,  and  Nepenthe  sings, 

Moly  the  gods'  most  sovereign  herb  divine; 

Nepenthe,  Helen's  drink,  most  gladness  brings, 

Heart's  grief  expels,  and  doth  the  wits  refine. 

But  this  our  age  another  world  hath  found, 

From  whence  an  herb  of  heavenly  power  is  brought; 

Moly  is  not  so  sovereign  for  a  wound, 

[119] 


24  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Nor  hath  Nepenthe  so  great  wonders  wrought. 
It  is  tobacco,  whose  sweet  subtle  fume, 
The  hellish  torment  of  the  teeth  doth  ease. 
By  drawing  down,  and  drying  up  the  rheum, 
The  mother  and  the  nurse  of  each  disease. 

Both  sides  of  the  controversy  are  skilfully  repre- 
sented in  Ben  Jonson's  Every  Man  in  His  Humor  (Act 
III,  Scene  2),  acted  on  the  25th  of  November,  1596, 
and  printed  in  1601.  Bobadilla  pleads  thus  in  favor 
of  the  case:  "Signior  beleeve  me,  (upon  my  relation) 
for  what  I  tel  you,  the  world  shall  not  improve.  I  have 
been  in  the  Indies  (where  this  herbe  growes)  where 
neither  my  selfe,  nor  a  dozen  Gentlemen  more  (of  my 
knowledge)  have  received  the  taste  of  any  other  nu- 
triment, in  the  world,  for  the  space  of  one  and  twentie 
weekes,  but  Tabacco  onely.  Therefore  it  cannot  be  but 
'tis  most  divine.  Further,  take  it  in  the  nature,  in 
the  true  kinde  so,  it  makes  an  Antidote,  that  (had  you 
taken  the  most  deadly  poysonous  simple  in  all  Flor- 
ence, it  should  expell  it,  and  clarifie  you  with  as  much 
ease,  as  I  speak.  And  for  your  greene  wound,  your 
Balsamwn,  and  your — are  all  meere  gulleries,  and 
trash  to  it,  especially  your  Trinidado:  your  Newcotian 
is  good  too :  I  could  say  that  I  know  of  the  vertue  of 
it,  for  the  exposing  of  rewmes,  raw  humors,  crudities, 
obstructions,  with  a  thousand  of  this  kind ;  but  I  pro- 
fesse  my  selfe  no  quack-salver:  only  thus  much:  by 
Hercules  I  doe  holde  it,  and  will  affirme  it  (before  any 
Prince  in  Europe)  to  be  the  most  soveraigne,  and 
pretious  herbe  that  ever  the  earth  tendred  to  the  use 
of  man."  Then  Cob  represents  the  other  side  as  fol- 
lows: "By  gods  deynes:  I  marie  what  pleasure  or 
f elicitie  they  have  in  taking  this  roguish  Tabacco ;  it's 
good  for  nothing  but  to  choake  a  man,  and  fill  him 
full  of  smoake  and  imbers :  there  were  f oure  died  out 
of  one  house  last  weeke  with  taking  of  it,  and  two 
more  the  bell  went  for  yester-night,  one  of  them  (they 
say)  will  ne're  scape  it,  he  voyded  a  bushell  of  soote 

[120] 


The  Tobacco  Controversy  in  England  25 

yester-day,  upward  and  downeward.  By  the  stockes; 
and  there  were  no  wiser  men  then  I,  I'M  have  it  present 
death,  man  or  woman  that  should  but  deale  with  a 
Tabacco  pipe ;  why,  it  will  stifle  them  all  in  the  'nd  as 
many  as  use  it;  it's  little  better  than  rats  bane." 

It  is  a  matter  of  profound  regret  that  Shakes- 
peare has  never  alluded  to  tobacco  and  smoking. 

In  1602  appeared  a  pamphlet  entitled  "Work  for 
Chimny-sweepers :  or  a  warning  for  Tabacconists. 
Describing  the  pernicious  use  of  Tabacco,  no  lesse 
pleasant  than  profitable  for  all  sorts  to  reade.  Fumus 
patriae,  Igne  alieno  Luculentior.    As  much  as  to  say, 

Better  be  chokt  with  English  hemp, 
then  poisoned  with  Indian  Tabacco. 

Imprinted  at  London  by  T.  Este,  for  Thomas  Bushell, 
and  are  to  be  sould  at  the  great  North  dore  of  Powles 
1602."  The  anonymous  author,  who  calls  himself 
Philaretes,  is  said  to  have  been  ordered  or  compelled 
to  write  this  invective,  presumably  by  James  I.  He 
alleges  eight  reasons  against  tobacco,  one  of  which  is 
that  the  first  author  and  finder  hereof  was  the  devil, 
and  the  first  practisers  were  the  devil's  priests,  and 
therefore  not  to  be  used  of  us  Christians.  The  idea  is 
not  original,  for  it  looms  up  in  Monardes  (in  Framp- 
ton's  translation,  fol.  38)  :  "And  as  the  Devil  is  a 
deceaver,  and  hath  the  knowledge  of  the  vertue  of 
hearbes,  so  he  did  shew  the  vertue  of  this  Hearb  [to 
the  Indians],  that  by  the  meanes  thereof,  they  might 
see  their  imaginations,  and  visions,  that  he  hath  rep- 
resented to  them,  and  by  that  meanes  deceive  them." 
Ben  Jonson  also  (Gipsies  Metamorphosis)  calls  to- 
bacco "the  Devil's  own  weed,"  and  according  to  Joshua 
Sylvester,  "hell  hath  smoke  impenitent  tobaccanists  to 
choake." 

Dekker,  in  his  The  Gull's  Horn-Book  (1602),  thus 
apostrophizes  tobacco:  "Make  me  thine  adopted  heir, 
that  inheriting  the  virtues  of  thy  whiffes,  I  may  dis- 

[121] 


26  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

tribute  them  amongst  all  nations,  and  make  the  fan- 
tastic Englishman,  above  the  rest,  more  cunning  in  the 
distinction  of  thy  roll  Trinidado,  leaf,  and  pudding, 
than  the  whitest-toothed  black-a-moor  in  all  Asia." 

In  1604  appeared  King  James'  famed  "A  Coun- 
terblaste  to  Tobacco.  Imprinted  at  London  by  R.  B. 
Anno  1604."  The  king's  name  does  not  appear  on 
the  title-page,  nor  at  the  end  of  the  preface  To  the 
Reader.  He  simply  speaks  of  himself  as  the  King. 
The  royal  pamphlet  has  met  with  almost  universal 
condemnation,  and  W.  Bragge  (Bibliotheca  Nicotiana, 
1880)  even  says  that  "he  most  Quixotically  broke  his 
lance  against  one  of  the  great  appetites  of  man." 
To  condemn  is  easier  ^than  to  understand.  In  my 
opinion  the  Counterblaste  is  a  remarkable  document 
of  considerable  culture-historical  interest,  which  must 
be  understood  and  interpreted  from  the  spirit  of  the 
time;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  James  was  actuated 
by  good  intentions  and  by  a  solicitous  care  for  the 
welfare  of  his  subjects,  even  though  his  blind  hatred 
of  tobacco  carries  him  too  far.  He  condemns  its  use 
primarily  out  of  motives  of  racial  and  national  pride: 
"And  now  good  Countrey  men  let  us  (I  pray  you) 
consider,  what  honour  or  policie  can  move  us  to  imitate 
the  barbarous  and  beastly  maners  of  the  wild,  god- 
lesse,  and  slavish  Indians,  especially  in  so  vile  and 
stinking  a  custome?  Shall  wee  that  disdaine  to  imi- 
tate the  maners  of  our  neighbour  France  (having  the 
stile  of  the  first  Christian  Kingdom)  and  that  cannot 
endure  the  spirit  of  the  Spaniards  (their  King  being 
now  comparable  in  largenes  of  Dominions,  to  the 
great  Emperor  of  Turkie)  Shall  wee,  I  say,  that  have 
bene  so  long  civill  and  wealthy  in  Peace,  famous  and 
invincible  in  Warre,  fortunate  in  both,  we  that  have 
bene  ever  able  to  aide  any  of  our  neighbours  (but 
never  deafed  any  of  their  eares  with  any  of  our  sup- 
plications  for   assistance)    shall  we,   I   say,   without 

[122] 


King  James'  Counterblaste  27 

blushing,  abase  our  selves  so  farre,  as  to  imitate  these 
beastly  Indians,  slaves  to  the  Spaniards,  refuse  to  the 
world,  and  as  yet  aliens  from  the  holy  Covenant  of 
God?  Why  doe  we  not  as  well  imitate  them  in  walk- 
ing naked  as  they  doe?  in  preferring  glasses,  feathers, 
and  such  toyes,  to  gold  and  precious  stones,  as  they 
do?  yea  why  do  we  not  denie  God  and  adore  the  Devill, 
as  they  doe  ?" 

He  goes  on  to  refute,  in  the  physiological  terms 
of  his  time,  the  medicinal  virtues  of  the  drug,  and 
after  all  the  absurdities  previously  written  in  praise 
of  its  alleged  healing  powers,  his  arguments  make 
rather  refreshing  reading.  To  the  argument  "that 
the  whole  people  would  not  have  taken  so  generall  a 
good  liking  thereof,  if  they  had  not  by  experience 
found  it  verie  soveraigne  and  good  for  them,"  he 
responds  justly  that  this  custom  is  merely  based  on 
imitation  and  fashion.  "For  such  is  the  force  of  that 
naturall  Selfe-love  in  every  one  of  us,  and  such  is  the 
corruption  of  envie  bred  in  the  brest  of  every  one,  as 
we  cannot  be  content  unlesse  we  imitate  every  thing 
that  our  fellowes  doe,  and  so  proove  our  selves  capable 
of  every  thing  whereof  they  are  capable,  like  Apes, 
counterfeiting  the  maners  of  others,  to  our  owne  des- 
truction." The  argument  that  people  have  been  cured 
of  diverse  diseases  by  taking  tobacco  is  fallacious  and 
rests  on  a  confusion  of  cause  and  effect;  the  disease 
takes  its  natural  course  and  declines,  but  it  is  not 
tobacco  that  wrought  this  miracle.  If  a  man  smoke 
himself  to  death  with  it  (and  many  have  done) ,  O  then 
some  other  disease  must  beare  the  blame  for  that 
fault.  He  justly  rejects  the  idea  that  tobacco  could 
act  as  a  panacea,  a  cure  for  all  diseases  in  all  persons 
and  at  all  times.  "0  omnipotent  power  of  Tobacco!" 
he  exclaims,  "And  if  it  could  by  the  smoke  thereof 
chace  out  devils,  as  the  smoke  of  Tobias  fish  did  (which 
I  am  sure  could  smel  no  stronglier)  it  would  serve  for 

[123] 


28  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

a  precious  Relicke,  but  for  the  superstitious  Priests, 
and  the  insolent  Puritanes,  to  cast  out  devils  withall." 

As  to  the  moral  evaluation  of  smoking,  the  king 
holds  that  smokers  are  guilty  of  sinful  and  shameful 
lust,  that  its  use  or  rather  abuse  is  a  branch  of  the  sin 
of  drunkenness,  which  is  the  root  of  all  sins,  and  that 
it  disables  men  for  military  service.  "In  the  times  of 
the  many  glorious  and  victorious  battailes  fought  by 
this  Nation,  there  was  no  word  of  Tobacco.  But  now 
if  it  were  time  of  warres,  and  that  you  were  to  make 
some  sudden  Cavalcado  upon  your  enemies,  if  any  of 
you  should  seeke  leisure  to  stay  behinde  his  fellows 
for  taking  of  Tobacco,  for  my  part  I  should  never  bee 
sorie  for  any  evill  chance  that  might  befall  him.  To 
take  a  custome  in  any  thing  that  cannot  bee  left 
againe,  is  most  harmefull  to  the  people  of  any  land." 
Finally,  it  is  a  waste  of  national  wealth:  "Now  how 
you  are  by  this  custome  disabled  in  your  goods,  let  the 
Gentry  of  this  land  beare  witnesse,  some  of  them  be- 
stowing three,  some  foure  hundred  pounds  a  yeere 
upon  this  precious  stinke,  which  I  am  sure  might  be 
bestowed  upon  many  farre  better  uses." 

He  condemns  the  prevailing  custom  of  smoking 
at  the  dinner-table  when  very  often  men  that  abhor  it 
are  present.  Smoking  in  public  had  increased  to  such 
a  degree  that  men  sound  in  judgment  were  at  last 
forced  to  take  it  also  without  desire,  "partly  because 
they  were  ashamed  to  seeme  singular,  and  partly,  to 
be  as  one  that  was  content  to  eate  Garlicke  (which 
hee  did  not  love)  that  he  might  not  be  troubled  with 
the  smell  of  it,  in  the  breath  of  his  fellowes."  It  was 
accordingly  an  act  of  self-defence.  A  man  could  not 
heartily  welcome  his  friend  now,  but  straight  they 
must  be  in  hand  with  tobacco.  It  was  a  point  of 
good  fellowship,  and  he  who  would  refuse  to  take  a 
pipe  among  his  fellows  was  accounted  peevish  and  no 
good  company.    "Yea  the  Mistresse  cannot  in  a  more 

[124] 


King  James'  Counterblaste  29 

manerly  kinde,  entertaine  her  servant,  then  by  giving 
him  out  of  her  faire  hand  a  pipe  of  Tobacco."  It  is  a 
great  contempt  of  God's  good  gifts  that  the  sweetness 
of  man's  breath,  being  a  gift  of  God,  should  be  willfully 
corrupted  by  this  stinking  smoke.  "Moreover,  which 
is  a  great  iniquitie,  and  against  all  humanitie,  the 
husband  shall  not  bee  ashamed,  to  reduce  thereby  his 
delicate,  wholesome  and  cleane  complexioned  wife,  to 
that  extremitie,  that  either  shee  must  also  corrupt  her 
sweete  breath  therewith,  or  else  resolve  to  live  in  a 
perpetuall  stinking  torment." 

He  winds  up  his  sermon  as  follows:  "Have  you 
not  reason  then  to  bee  ashamed,  and  to  forbeare  this 
filthie  noveltie,  so  basely  grounded,  so  foolishly  re- 
ceived and  so  grossely  mistaken  in  the  right  use  there- 
of? In  your  abuse  thereof  sinning  against  God,  harm- 
ing your  selves  both  in  persons  and  goods,  and  rak- 
ing also  thereby  the  markes  and  notes  of  vanitie  upon 
you :  by  the  custome  thereof  making  your  selves  to  be 
wondered  at  by  all  forraine  civil  Nations,  and  by  all 
strangers  that  come  among  you,  to  be  scorned  and 
contemned.  A  custome  lothsome  to  the  eye,  hatefull 
to  the  Nose,  harmefull  to  the  braine,  dangerous  to  the 
Lungs,  and  in  the  blacke  stinking  fume  thereof, 
neerest  resembling  the  horrible  Stigian  smoke  of  the 
pit  that  is  bottomelesse." 

In  1616  the  Counterblaste  was  reprinted  in 
Bishop  Montagu's  collected  edition  of  James' 
"Workes,"  and  in  1619  the  Bishop  published  a  Latin 
translation  of  the  King's  works  in  which  the  Counter- 
blaste appears  as  "Misocapnus  ['Smoke-hater'],  sive 
de  Abusu  Tobacci  Lusus  Regius."  While  the  royal 
diatribe  is  sizzling,  of  course,  with  misstatements,  ex- 
aggerations, and  outbursts  of  gloomy  pessimism  and 
unrestrained  animosity,  it  was  a  natural  reaction 
against   the   many   exorbitant   claims   made   by   the 

[126] 


30  Field  Museum  op  Natural  History 

friends  and  defenders  of  the  narcotic,  and  in  his  scath- 
ing denunciation  of  the  tobacco  excesses  of  his  time 
the  king  was  presumably  nearly  right.  In  our  own 
days  his  phraseology  has  been  echoed  by  Eliah  the 
Prophet,  and  the  Jameses  we  shall  always  have  with 
us. 

Nor  did  the  king  stop  at  purely  platonic  exhorta- 
tions. Under  the  17th  day  of  October,  1604,  he  ad- 
dressed at  Westminster  a  Commissio  pro  Tabacco  to 
the  right  Trustie  and  right  Welbeloved  Cousen  and 
Counsellor,  Thomas  Earle  of  Dorset,  high  treasourer 
of  England,  who  is  commanded  "to  give  order  to  all 
Customers,  Comptrollers,  Searchers,  Surveyors,  and 
all  other  Officers  of  our  Portes,  that  they  shall  de- 
maunde  and  take  to  our  use  of  all  Merchauntes,  as 
well  Englishe  as  Strangers,  and  of  all  others  whoe 
shall  bringe  in  anye  Tabacco  into  this  Realme,  within 
any  Porte  Haven  or  Creek  belonging  to  any  theire 
severall  Charges,  the  Somme  of  Six  Shillinges  and 
eighte  Pence  uppon  everye  Pound  Waight  thereof, 
over  and  above  the  Custome  of  Twoo  Pence  uppon  the 
Pounde  Waighte  usuallye  paide  heretofore."  In- 
fractors were  threatened  with  confiscation  and  blows. 
"If  anye  Merchaunte  Englishe  or  Straunger,  or  other 
whatsoever,  shall  presume  to  bringe  in  anye  of  the 
saide  Tabacco,  before  suche  Payemente  and  Satis- 
factione  first  made.  That  then  he  shall  not  onelie  for- 
feite  the  saide  Tabacco,  but  alsoe  shall  undergoe  suche 
furthere  Penalties  and  corporall  Punishmente  as  the 
Qualitie  of  suche  soe  highe  a  Contempte  against  our 
Royall  and  expresse  Commaundemente  in  this  mannere 
published  shall  deserve." 

As  stated  in  the  introductory  paragraph  of  this 
order,  the  object  of  this  measure  was  to  restrain  the 
heavy  importations  of  tobacco,  "whereby  it  is  likelie 
that  a  lesse  Quantitie  of  Tabacco  will  hereafter  be 
broughte  into  this  our  Realm  of  England,  Dominion 

[126] 


King  James  and  Tobacco  81 

of  Wales  and  Town  of  Barwick  then  in  former  tjnmes, 
and  yet  sufficient  store  to  serve  for  their  necessarie 
use  who  are  of  the  better  sort,  and  have  and  will  use 
the  same  with  Moderation  to  preserve  their  Healthe." 
The  latter  point  is  of  great  interest,  for  it  does  not  crop 
up  in  the  "Counterblaste."  The  king  discriminates  be- 
tween a  better  and  baser  sort  of  people,  and  gra- 
ciously concedes  to  the  former  a  moderate  use  of  the 
herb.  By  way  of  introduction  he  comments  that  to- 
bacco was  used  and  taken  by  the  better  sort  both  then 
and  now  only  as  physic  to  preserve  health,  "and  is  now 
at  this  Day,  through  evell  Custome  and  the  Toleration 
thereof,  excessivelie  taken  by  a  nomber  of  ryotous 
and  disordered  Persons  of  meane  and  base  Condition, 
whoe,  contrarie  to  the  use  which  Persons  of  good 
Callinge  and  Qualitye  make  thereof,  doe  spend  most 
of  there  tyme  in  that  idle  Vanitie,  to  the  evill  example 
and  corrupting  of  others,  and  also  do  consume  that 
Wages  whiche  manye  of  them  gett  by  theire  Labour, 
and  wherewith  there  Families  should  be  releived,  not 
caring  at  what  Price  they  buye  that  Drugge,  but 
rather  devisinge  how  to  add  to  it  other  Mixture, 
therebye  to  make  it  the  more  delightfull  to  their 
Taste,  though  so  much  the  more  costly  to  there  Purse ; 
by  which  great  and  imoderate  takinge  of  Tabacco  the 
Health  of  a  great  nomber  of  our  People  is  impayred, 
and  theire  Bodies  weakened  and  made  unfit  for  Labor, 
the  Estates  of  many  mean  Persons  soe  decayed  and 
consumed  as  they  are  thereby  dryven  to  unthriftie 
Shifts  onelie  to  maynteyne  their  gluttonous  exercise 
thereof,  besides  that  also  a  great  part  of  the  Treasure 
of  our  Lande  is  spent  and  exhausted  by  this  onely 
Drugge  so  licentiously  abused  by  the  meaner  sorte, 
all  which  enormous  Inconveniences  ensuinge  there- 
uppon."  The  king's  solicitude,  accordingly,  centered 
around  the  misera  plebs,  while  the  nobility  is  dis- 
missed with  a  patronizing  pat  on  the  shoulders. 

[127] 


32  Field  Museum  op  Natural  History 

Edmund  Gardiner,  Gentleman  and  Practicioner 
in  Physicke,  wrote  a  medical  defence  in  1610  under 
the  title,  "The  Triall  of  Tabacco.  Wherein,  his  worth 
is  most  worthily  expressed;  as,  in  the  name,  nature, 
and  qualitie  of  the  sayd  herb;  his  speciall  use  in  all 
Physicke,  with  the  true  and  right  use  of  taking  it,  as 
well  for  the  Seasons,  and  times,  as  also  the  Com- 
plexions, Dispositions,  and  Constitutions,  of  such 
Bodies,  and  Persons,  as  are  fittest:  and  to  whom  it  is 
most  profitable  to  take  it."  A  new  edition  appeared 
in  1650. 

Joshua  Sylvester  published  in  1614  in  folio  a 
poem  under  the  title  "Tabacco  battered ;  and  the  Pipes 
shattered  (About  their  Eeares  that  idlely  Idolize  so 
base  and  barbarous  a  Weed ;  or  at  least-wise  over-love 
so  loathsome  Vanitie)  :  by  a  Volley  of  Holy  Shot 
thundered  from  Mount  Helicon.  Du  Bartas  his  Divine 
Weekes  and  Workes  with  a  Compleate  Collection  of 
all  the  other  most  delight-full  Workes  Translated  and 
written  by  yt  famous  Philomusus,  losvah  Sylvester 
gent :  London,  printed  by  Robert  Young."  The  poem, 
like  its  title,  is  bombastic  and  dull:  it  threatens  pun- 
ishment with  infernal  rod  in  hell's  dark  furnace,  with 
black  fumes  to  choke,  to  those  who  on  earth  offended 
in  smoke. 

William  Barclay's  "Nepenthes,  or  the  Vertues  of 
Tabacco"  (Edinburgh,  1614)  is  a  vindication  of  to- 
bacco, and  is  directed  straight  against  the  Counter- 
blaste.  He  recommends  tobacco  either  green  or  dry 
for  the  cure  of  many  maladies,  either  as  a  ball  made 
from  the  fresh  leaves  big  enough  to  fill  the  patient's 
mouth,  or  as  a  smoke  on  an  empty  stomach  ("not  as 
the  English  abusers  do,  which  make  a  smoke-boxe 
of  their  skull").  In  his  dedication  to  the  Bishop  of 
Murray  he  calls  on  him  to  defend  "this  sacred  herb." 

A   stranger  plant,   shipwracked   on   our  coast, 
Is  come  to  helpe  this  cold  phlegmatic  soyle. 

[128] 


The  Tobacco  Controversy  in  England  33 

He  defends  tobacco  as  having  "much  heavenlie  vertue 
in  store"  and  describes  America  as  "the  countrie  which 
God  hath  honoured  and  blessed  with  this  happie  and 
holy  herb." 

John  Deacon  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  James  I 
and  dedicated  to  him  in  1616  "Tobacco  tortured;  or 
the  filthie  fume  of  Tobacco  refined."  This  work  is 
couched  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue  between  Capnistus 
and  Hydrophorus.  It  is  divided  into  two  parts,  (1) 
The  Fume  of  Tobacco  taken  inward,  is  very  pernicious 
unto  the  Body.  (2)  The  Fume  of  Tobacco  taken  in- 
ward, is  too  too  profluvious  for  many  of  our  Tobac- 
conists purses,  and  most  pernicious  to  the  publike 
State.  One  of  the  most  curious  attempts  to  prevent 
smoking  in  a  family  is  contained  in  a  will,  dated  Oc- 
tober 20th,  1616,  wherein  P.  Campbell  leaves  to  his 
son  all  his  household  goods,  "on  this  condition,  that  yf 
at  any  time  hereafter,  any  of  his  brothers  or  sisters 
shall  fynd  him  takeing  of  tobacco,  that  then  he  or 
she  so  f  jTiding  him,  shall  have  the  said  goods." 

Tobias  Venner,  Doctor  of  Physicke  in  Bath,  pub- 
lished in  1621  "A  Briefe  and  accurate  treatise,  con- 
cerning, The  taking  of  the  fume  of  Tobacco,  which 
very  many,  in  these  dayes,  doe  too  licentiously  use.  In 
which,  the  immoderate,  irregular,  and  unseasonable 
use  thereof  is  reprehended,  and  the  true  nature  and 
best  manner  of  using  it,  perspicuously  demonstrated." 

In  this  manner  the  struggle  for  or  against  the 
herb  was  continued,  but  ultimately  ended  in  a  com- 
plete triumph  of  tobacco,  as  an  examination  of  the 
various  manners  in  which  it  was  consumed  will  show. 

USE  OF  TOBACCO  IN  ENGLAND 

It  appears  from  Harrison's  account  (above, 
p.  7)  that  Englishmen  took  up  tobacco-smoking  from 
ladle-like  pipes  in  1573.  From  1586  pipes  were  in  full 
blast,  and  smoking  during  that  early  period  was  es- 

[129] 


34  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

sentially  fashionable.  One  of  the  characteristics  of 
the  gallant,  the  dandy  of  the  time,  was  his  devotion 
to  tobacco.  "To  take  tobacco  with  a  grace"  was  one 
of  a  gentleman's  accomplishments.  Clusius,  the  bota- 
nist (Exotica,  1601,  p.  310),  speaks  of  the  clay  pipes 
made  by  the  colonists  in  Virginia,  and  adds  that  from 
1585  the  use  of  tobacco  increased  throughout  England 
to  such  a  degree,  particularly  among  the  courtiers, 
that  they  had  many  similar  tubes  made  after  the 
model  of  those  brought  back  from  Virginia  for  to- 
bacco-smoking. 

John  Gerard  was  familiar  with  the  custom  of 
smoking.  "The  drie  leaves,"  he  writes  in  his  Herball 
(1597),  "are  used  to  be  taken  in  a  pipe  set  on  fire  and 
suckt  into  the  stomacke,  and  thrust  foorth  again  at 
the  nosthrils  against  the  paines  of  the  head,  rheumes, 
aches  in  any  part  of  the  bodie,  whereof  soever  the 
original  doth  proceed,  whether  from  Fraunce,  Italy, 
Spaine,  Indies,  or  from  our  familiar  and  best  knowne 
diseases." 

All  the  early  accounts  agree  in  stating  that  the 
smoke  was  expelled  through  the  nostrils, — an  imita- 
tion of  Indian  custom.  In  a  play  by  Field  (1618),  a 
foolish  nobleman  is  asked  by  some  boon  companions  in 
a  tavern,  "Will  your  lordship  take  any  tobacco  ?"  when 
another  sneers,  "  'Sheart !  he  cannot  put  it  through 
his  nose!"  There  were  professors  of  the  art  of  smok- 
ing who  taught  pupils  the  "slights,"  as  tricks  with 
the  pipe  were  called.  These  included  exhaling  the 
smoke  in  globes  and  rings.  Ben  Jonson  describes  one 
Sogliardo  as  "an  essential  clown,  yet  so  enamored  of 
the  name  of  a  gentleman  that  he  will  have  it  though 
he  buys  it;  he  comes  up  every  term  to  learn  to  take 
tobacco  and  see  new  motions."  Hence  Marston  could 
make  the  joke,  "Her  love  is  just  like  a  whiff e  of  Ta- 
bacco,  no  sooner  in  at  the  mouth,  but  out  at  the  nose." 
This  practice,  it  is  said,  died  out  after  the  death  of 

[lao] 


Pipe-smoking  IN  England  86 

James  I  (1625),  and  from  that  time  onward  the  fumes 
were  plainly  discharged  from  the  mouth.  Smoking  then 
lost  its  medical  aspect  and  developed  into  an  honest, 
every-day  pastime  and  pleasure. 

In  1660  Winstanley  declared,  "Tobacco  it  self  is 
by  few  taken  now  as  medicinal,  it  is  grown  a  good- 
fellow,  and  fallen  from  a  Physician  to  a  Complement. 
He's  no  good-fellow  that's  without  burnt  Pipes,  To- 
bacco, and  His  Tinder  Box." 

Silver  pipes  are  mentioned  by  Sir  William 
Vaughan  (Naturall  and  Artificial!  Directions  for 
Health,  1602,  p.  22) :  "Cane  Tabacco  well  dryed,  and 
taken  in  a  silver  pipe  fasting  in  the  morning,  cureth 
the  megrim,  the  tooth  ache,  obstructions  proceeding 
of  cold,  and  helpeth  the  fits  of  the  mother.  After 
meales  it  doth  much  hurt,  for  it  infecteth  the  braine 
and  the  liver." 

In  John  Aubrey's  Letters  written  by  Eminent 
Persons  we  read,  "They  had  first  silver  pipes.  The 
ordinary  sort  made  use  of  a  walnut  shell  and  a  strawe. 
I  have  heard  my  grandfather  Lyte  say,  that  one  pipe 
was  handed  from  man  to  man  round  the  table."  This 
was  done  because  the  cost  of  a  pipe  was  considerable. 

Paul  Hentzner  (Itinerarium),  a  German  lawyer, 
who  visited  England  in  1598,  has  recorded  the  fol- 
lowing observation:  "At  these  spectacles  [in  the 
London  theatres]  and  everywhere  else,  the  English  are 
constantly  smoking  Tobacco,  and  in  this  manner :  they 
have  pipes  on  purpose  made  of  clay,  into  the  farther 
end  of  which  they  put  the  herb,  so  dry  that  it  may  be 
rubbed  into  powder,  and  lighting  it,  they  draw  the 
smoake  into  their  mouths,  which  they  puff  out  again 
through  their  nostrils  like  funnels,  along  with  it  plenty 
of  phlegm  and  defluxion  from  the  head." 

The  clay  pipe  first  made  about  1590  soon  became 
fashionable  and  the  typical  English  pipe.  It  achieved 
fame  all  over  Europe  and  was  imitated  in  Holland  and 

[181] 


36  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Germany.  The  English  became  the  adepts  of  the  pipe- 
cult  and  the  initiators  and  propagators  of  pipe-smok- 
ing in  Europe.  The  first  pipes  had  small,  pear-shaped 
bowls  and  short  stems,  from  three  to  six  inches  in 
length.  Under  the  bowl  was  a  flat  heel,  enabling  the 
pipe  to  stand  upright  on  a  table.  In  1619  the  pipe- 
makers  received  their  charter  of  incorporation  from 
James  I.  The  Company  of  Pipe-makers  consisted  of 
a  master,  four  wardens,  and  twenty-four  assistants. 
Their  escutcheon  bore  a  tobacco  plant  in  full  blossom, 
and  their  motto  was  "Let  brotherly  love  continue." 
All  pipes  then  were  made  of  clay,  though  occasion- 
ally some  were  made  of  iron  or  brass.  Under  the 
reign  of  William  III  (1689-1702)  the  Dutch  style  with 
larger  bowls  and  long,  straight  stems  was  adopted. 
Wooden  pipes  and  briars  appeared  only  from  the  latter 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century;  briar  (from  the  French 
bruyere,  "heath")  is  the  root  of  the  tree  heath  (Erica 
arhorea),  a  native  of  southern  France.  The  English 
are  still  masters  of  the  pipe,  turning  out  the  best 
pipes  and  the  best  smoking  mixtures ;  a  good  English 
pipe  makes  a  man  feel  that  life  is  still  worth  living. 
The  pipe  is  the  emblem  of  strength  and  manliness,  of 
peace  and  brotherhood,  of  liberty  and  democratic  gov- 
ernment. "The  pipe,"  says  Thackeray,  "draws  wis- 
dom from  the  lips  of  the  philosopher,  and  shuts  up 
the  mouth  of  the  foolish ;  it  generates  a  style  of  con- 
versation, contemplative,  thoughtful,  benevolent  and 
unaffected.  May  I  die  if  I  abuse  that  kindly  weed 
which  has  given  me.  so  much  pleasure."  As  the 
English  had  preceded  all  other  European  nations  in 
the  struggle  for  liberty  and  human  rights  and  had  set 
the  model  for  constitutional  and  parliamentary  govern- 
ment, history  justly  assigned  to  them  the  distinction 
of  carrying  this  emblem  all  over  the  world. 

Maple  blocks  were  used  in  the  old  days  for  cut- 
ting or  shredding  the  tobacco  upon.    The  pipes  were 

[182] 


Pipe-smoking  in  England  87 

formerly  lighted  by  means  of  live  charcoal  from  juni- 
per wood.  King  James  says  in  his  Counterblaste 
(1604),  "In  your  persons  having  by  this  continuall 
vile  custome  brought  your  selves  to  this  shameful  im- 
becilitie,  that  you  are  not  able  to  ride  or  walke  the 
iourney  of  a  lewes  Sabboth,  but  you  must  have  a  reekie 
cole  brought  you  from  the  next  poore  house  to  kindle 
your  Tobacco  with?"  William  Barclay  (Nepenthes, 
or  the  Vertues  of  Tabacco,  Edinburgh,  1614)  tells  this 
story:  "I  chanced  in  company  on  a  tyme  with  an 
English  merchant  in  Normandie  betweene  Rowen  and 
New-haven.  This  fellow  was  a  merrie  man,  but  at 
every  house  he  must  have  a  Cole  to  kindle  his  Tabacco : 
the  Frenchman  wondered,  and  I  laughed  at  his  in- 
temperancie."  Silver  tongs,  called  ember-tongs  or 
brand-tongs,  were  used  in  lifting  the  hot  charcoal  to 
light  the  pipe. 

Many  old  English  "clays"  are  provided  with  the 
maker's  initials.  Monograms  and  designs  were 
stamped  or  moulded  upon  the  bowls  and  stems,  but 
more  generally  upon  the  spur  or  flat  heel  of  the  pipe. 
During  the  latter  half  of  the  seventeenth  century 
English  pipes  were  presented  by  colonists  in  America 
to  the  Indians.  They  subsequently  became  valuable 
as  objects  of  barter  or  part  purchase  price  in  exchange 
for  land.  In  1677,  one  hundred  and  twenty  pipes  and 
one  hundred  Jew's  harps  were  given  for  a  strip  of  land 
near  Timber  Creek  in  New  Jersey.  When  William 
Penn,  the  founder  of  Pennsylvania,  purchased  a  tract 
of  land,  three  hundred  pipes  were  included  in  the 
articles  given  in  the  exchange. 

It  was  customary  for  a  man  to  carry  a  case  of 
pipes  about  with  him.  In  Everie  Woman  in  Her 
Humour,  a  play  written  in  1609,  there  is  an  inventory 
of  the  contents  of  a  gentleman's  pocket,  with  a  value 
given  for  each  item.  A  case  of  tobacco-pipes  is 
appraised  at  fourpence;  half  an  ounce  of  tobacco,  at 

[US] 


88  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

sixpence,  and  three  pence  in  coin,  or,  as  it  is  quaintly 
worded,  "in  money  and  golde."  Satirists  poked  fun 
at  the  smoker's  pocketful  of  apparatus.  A  pamphleteer 
of  1609  says,  "I  behelde  pipes  in  his  pocket;  now  he 
draweth  forth  his  tinder-box  and  his  touchwood,  and 
falleth  to  his  tacklings;  sure  his  throat  is  on  fire,  the 
smoke  flyeth  so  fast  from  his  mouth."  In  his  "Epi- 
grammata  religiosa,  officiosa,  iocosa"  (privately 
printed,  London,  1627),  John  Pyne  of  Bearferres,  of 
whose  life  no  details  are  known,  has  left  the  following 
Epitaph  of  a  certaine  Tobacchonist : — 

Loe  heere  I  lye  roll'd  up  like  th'  Indian  Weed, 
My  Pipes  I  have  pack'd  up,  for  Breath  I  need. 
Mans  Breath's  a  vapour,  Hee  himself e  is  Grasse; 
My  Breath  but  of  a  Weed  the  vapour  was. 
When  I  shall  turne  to  Earth,  Good  Friends  beware. 
Lest  it  evaporate  and  infect  the  Aire.  * 

Besides  the  instruments  mentioned,  a  tobacco-box 
(pouches  were  then  unknown)  was  indispensable  to  the 
rich  young  gallant.  The  boxes  were  made  of  silver, 
iron,  copper,  brass,  ivory,  mother-of-pearl,  tortoise- 
shell,  bone,  or  wood,  curiously  and  artistically  carved. 
They  were  usually  small  enough  to  be  carried  in  the 
pocket,  and  contained,  in  addition  to  the  weed,  a  pipe, 
the  ember-tongs,  flint  and  steel,  and  a  priming-iron. 
Occasionally  a  looking-glass  was  set  in  the  box. 
Tobacco-boxes  were  given  and  exchanged  as  tokens  of 
friendship.  In  those  days,  when  tobacco  was  eight  or 
ten  shillings  a  pound,  smokers  were  economic  and 
burned  their  tobacco  to  the  very  bottom  of  the  bowl, 
pressing  the  ashes  down  by  means  of  a  stopper.  The 
stoppers  were  made  of  wood,  bone,  ivory,  mother-of- 
pearl,  brass,  silver,  or  gold,  of  various  shapes,  and 
adorned  with  figures  of  national  heroes  or  heads  of 
animals.  Some  smokers  wore  rings  provided  with  a 
stud  for  ramming  down  the  contents  of  the  pipe. 

During  the  Elizabethan  period  and  after  women 
smoked  as  well  as  men  (cf.  Howes,  above,  p.  4).     In 

[  134  ] 


Snuff  in  England  89 

Dekker's  Satiromastix  (1602)  Asinius  Babo,  offering 
his  pipe,  observes,  "*Tis  at  your  service,  gallants,  and 
the  tobacco  too:  'tis  right  pudding,  I  can  tell  you;  a 
lady  or  two  took  a  pipe  full  or  two  at  my  hands,  and 
praised  it,  fore  the  heavens."  In  Heywood's  Fair  Maid 
of  the  Exchange  (1607),  one  of  the  characters  is 
advised  to  court  a  girl  by  "asking  her  if  she'll  take  a 
pipe  of  tobacco."  William  Prynne,  the  famous  Puri- 
tanic inveigher  against  stage-plays,  informs  us  that  in 
his  time  ladies  at  the  theatre  were  sometimes  offered 
the  tobacco-pipe  as  a  refreshment  instead  of  apples. 
On  the  title-page  of  Middleton's  comedy.  The  Roaring 
Girle  (1611),  is  a  picture  of  the  heroine  in  man's 
apparel,  smoking  a  pipe  from  which  a  cloud  of  smoke 
is  issuing.  The  portrait  of  a  woman,  painted  about 
1651,  holding  in  her  right  hand  a  tobacco-box  and 
gracefully  wielding  in  her  left  a  pipe,  is  reproduced  in 
Fairholt's  book  "Tobacco"  (p.  69) . 

In  the  British  Apollo  (Vol.  I,  1708)  it  is  stated, 
"Snuff,  tho'  the  use  of  it  has  been  long  known  to  such, 
as  were  by  merchandizing  or  other  means,  familiar 
with  the  Spanish  customes,  has  been  till  lately,  a  per- 
fect stranger  to  the  practice  of  the  British  nation,  and 
like  our  other  fashions  came  to  us  from  France."  In 
the  Oxford  English  Dictionary  we  are  informed,  "The 
practice  of  taking  snuff  appears  to  have  become 
fashionable  about  1680,  but  prevailed  earlier  in  Ireland 
and  Scotland."  In  general  this  certainly  is  correct,  but 
snuff  was  not  entirely  foreign  to  the  Elizabethan  age. 
The  following  two  references  may  serve  as  evidence. 

Henry  Buttes  (Diets  Dry  Dinner,  1599),  in  his 
discourse  of  tobacco,  writes,  "Translated  out  of  India 
in  the  seed  or  roote ;  Native  or  sative  in  our  own  fruit- 
fullest  soiles:  Dried  in  the  shade,  and  compiled  very 
close:  of  a  tawny  colour,  somwhat  inclining  to  red: 
most  perspicuous  and  cleare:  which  the  Nose  soonest 
taketh  in  snuffe." 

[186] 


40  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Dekker,  in  his  "The  Gull's  Horn-book"  (1602), 
thus  describes  the  approved  fashion  in  his  day :  "Before 
the  meat  come  smoking  to  the  board,  our  gallant  must 
draw  out  his  tobacco-box,  the  ladle  for  the  cold  snuff 
into  the  nostril,  the  tongs,  and  priming-iron ;  all  which 
artillery  may  be  of  gold  or  silver,  if  he  can  reach  the 
price  of  it;  it  will  be  a  reasonable  useful  pawn  at  all 
times,  when  the  amount  of  his  money  falls  out  to  run 
low.  And  here  you  must  observe  to  know  in  what 
tobacco  is  in  town,  better  than  the  merchants,  and  to 
discourse  of  the  apothecaries  where  it  is  to  be  sold; 
then  let  him  show  his  several  tricks  in  taking  it,  as  the 
whiff,  the  ring,  etc.,  for  these  are  compliments  that 
gain  gentlemen  no  mean  respect."  As  Englishmen 
always  preferred  the  pipe,  we  hear  little  of  snuff  in 
the  first  part  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Irish  and 
Scotch  preferred  snuff,  formerly  also  called  sneeshing, 
sneezing,  and  smutchin  (from  Irish  smuitedn,  "pow- 
der" ;  Scotch  and  Gaelic  smuidean,  "a  mote,  a  particle 
of  dust").  Howell  (1650)  writes  in  his  Letters,  "The 
Spaniards  and  Irish  take  tobacco  in  powder  or 
smutchin,  and  it  mightily  refreshes  the  brain.  I  believe 
there  is  as  much  taken  this  way  in  Ireland  as  there 
is  in  pipes  in  England.  One  shall  see  the  serving-mai4 
upon  the  washing-block  and  the  swain  upon  the  plough- 
share, when  they  are  tired  with  their  labour,  take  out 
their  boxes  of  smutchin  and  draw  into  their  nostrils 
with  a  quill ;  and  it  will  beget  new  spirits  in  them  and 
fresh  vigour  to  fall  to  their  work  again." 

The  plague  of  1665  first  brought  snuff  into  promi- 
nence in  England  on  account  of  its  disinfectant  prop- 
erties. It  developed  into  a  fashion  under  the  reign  of 
Queen  Anne  (1702-14),  when  French  ideas  and  man- 
ners conquered  English  society  and  inaugurated  a  veri- 
table age  of  snuff,  which  completely  displaced  smoking 
in  society.  To  take  snuff  was  then  as  essential  a  part  of 
gallantry  as  to  drink  tobacco  had  been  a  century  before. 

E136] 


Snuff  in  England  41 

A  gentleman  was  then  known  by  his  snuff  and  snuff- 
box, and  snuff-taking  was  universal  in  the  fashionable 
world  among  both  men  and  women.  Alexander  Pope 
(1688-1744),  in  The  Rape  of  the  Lock,  wrote: — 

Sir  Plume,  of  amber  snuff-box  justly  vain, 
And  the  nice  conduct  of  a  clouded  cane. 
With  earnest  eyes  and  round,  unthinking  face 
He  first  the  snuff-box  opened,  then  the  case. 

And  Oliver  Goldsmith  (1728-74),  in  Retaliation: — 

When  they  talk'd  of  their  Raphaels,  Correggios,  and  stuff. 
He  shifted  his  trumpet  and  only  took  snuff. 

The  snuff-box  was  the  fetish  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
an  object  of  luxury,  a  tribute  of  friendship  and  admira- 
tion, a  gift  to  kings  and  ambassadors.  There  was  an 
infinite  number  of  snuffs,  and  there  were  morning, 
afternoon,  and  evening  snuffs. 

At  first,  snuff  was  not  sold  ready-made,  but  every 
one  prepared  it  himself.  It  was  scraped  with  a  rasp 
made  from  the  dry  root  of  the  tobacco  plant ;  the  pow- 
der was  then  placed  on  the  back  of  the  hand  and  thus 
snuffed  up.  Hence  the  name  rape  ("rasped,  grated") 
for  a  coarse  kind  of  snuff  made  from  the  darker  and 
ranker  tobacco  leaves.  The  rasps  were  carried  in  the 
waistcoat  pocket,  and  became  articles  of  luxury,  being 
carved  in  ivory  and  variously  enriched.  The  tobac- 
conist's shop-sign,  in  the  early  days,  was  the  figure  of 
a  Virginian  or  Negro  or  a  combination  of  both ;  in  the 
eighteenth  century  and  until  a  few  years  ago  it  was 
replaced  with  the  figure  of  a  Highlander,  usually  with 
a  snuff  mull  in  his  hand,  credited  as  he  was  with  a 
great  fondness  and  capacity  for  snuff-taking.  Walter 
Scott  said  that  a  Scotchman  in  London  would  walk 
half  a  mile  farther  to  purchase  his  ounce  of  snuff  where 
the  sign  of  the  Highlander  announced  a  North  Briton. 
After  the  suppression  of  the  Jacobite  uprising  of  1745, 
when  the  wearing  of  the  highland  costume  was  for- 
bidden by  Parliament,  the  following  paragraph 
appeared  in  the  newspapers  of  the  time:  "We  hear 

tl37] 


42  Field  Museum  op  Natural  History 

that  the  dapper  wooden  Highlanders,  who  guard  so 
heroically  the  doors  of  snuff-shops,  intend  to  petition 
the  Legislature,  in  order  that  they  may  be  excused 
from  complying  with  the  Act  of  Parliament  with 
regard  to  their  change  of  dress:  alledging  that  they 
have  ever  been  faithful  subjects  to  his  Majesty,  having 
constantly  supplied  his  Guards  with  a  pinch  out  of 
their  Mulls  when  they  marched  by  them,  and  so  far 
from  engaging  in  any  Rebellion,  that  they  have  never 
entertained  a  rebellious  thought ;  whence  they  humbly 
hope  that  they  shall  not  be  put  to  the  expense  of  buying 
new  cloaths." 

It  has  often  been  stated  that  snuff -taking  is  prac- 
tically extinct.  The  latest  news  from  London  (June 
12th,  1924)  indicates  that  there  is  a  definite  increase 
in  the  consumption  of  snuff  among  women  and  that 
jewellers  find  a  ready  sale  for  daintily  jewelled  snuff- 
boxes. 

Of  the  manifold  forms  in  which  tobacco  is  con- 
sumed the  custom  of  chewing  it  is  the  most  striking 
and  perhaps  even  the  most  primitive.  The  aborigines 
of  Australia,  we  now  know  for  certain,  were  in  the 
habit  of  chewing  the  leaves  of  Nicotiana  suaveolens,  a 
species  native  to  Australia,  in  times  prior  to  their  con- 
tact with  the  whites,  but  they  were  totally  ignorant 
of  smoking  the  leaves.  This  example  demonstrates  well 
that  primitive  man,  in  testing  the  properties  of  a 
vegetable  product,  will  first  exercise  his  senses  of 
touch,  smell,  and  taste.  The  Spanish  conquerors  came 
into  contact  with  the  habit  of  chewing  tobacco  in  the 
West  Indies  (account  of  Amerigo  Vespucci)  and 
Mexico  (early  accounts  of  B.  de  Sahagun  and  F.  Her- 
nandez). Monardes  (1571)  describes  it  as  follows: 
"The  Indians  use  tobacco  to  remove  thirst  which  in 
this  case  they  will  not  suffer,  and  likewise  to  stand 
hunger  and  to  be  able  to  pass  days  without  being  com- 
pelled to  eat  or  drink.     When  they  have  to  travel 

[138] 


Tobacco-chewing  in  England  48 

across  a  desert  or  unpopulous  region,  where  neither 
water  nor  food  is  to  be  found,  they  avail  themselves 
of  some  pills  made  of  tobacco  in  this  manner :  they  take 
the  leaves  of  the  plant  and  chew  them,  and  while  chew- 
ing, they  mix  them  with  a  powder  prepared  from  burnt 
river-mussels;  this  they  mix  in  their  mouth  together 
till  it  forms  a  mass  which  they  shape  into  pills  a  bit 
larger  than  peas;  these  are  placed  in  the  shadow  to 
dry,  are  then  preserved,  and  used  in  this  form.  When- 
ever they  travel  through  territories  where  they  believe 
not  to  find  water  or  victuals,  they  take  one  of  these 
pills,  placing  it  between  their  under  lips  and  teeth,  and 
keep  on  chewing  it  continually  during  their  journey, 
and  thus  they  go  along  for  three  or  four  days  without 
having  to  eat  or  drink  or  feeling  the  pinch  of  hunger 
or  thirst  or  fatigue." 

As  Monardes  was  translated  into  Latin,  French, 
Italian,  and  English,  Europeans  might  easily  have 
copied  his  prescription,  but  the  fact  remains  that  they 
did  not.  Leaves  may  occasionally  have  been  chewed 
for  medicinal  purposes,  but  no  habit  of  chewing  for 
pastime  or  pleasure  was  developed.  Gerard  (The 
Herball,  1597,  p.  286)  observes,  "The  leaves  likewise 
being  chewed  draw  fporth  flegme  and  water"  .  .  . 
Edmund  Gardiner,  in  his  "Triall  of  Tobacco"  (first 
published  in  1610,  new  ed.  1650),  says  that  "a  sirup 
made  of  the  decoction  of  this  herbe,  with  sufficient 
sugar,  and  so  taken  in  a  very  small  quantitie,  dis- 
chargeth  the  breast  from  phlegmatic  matter."  John 
Parkinson  (Theatrum  botanicum,  1640,  p.  712)  writes 
also  that  in  his  time  the  juice  from  the  leaves  of  Nico- 
tiana  mstica  was  made  into  a  syrup,  or  that  the  dis- 
tilled water  of  the  herb  was  taken  with  or  without 
sugar,  or  the  smoke  was  inhaled  from  a  pipe,  as  usual. 
Obviously  Parkinson  here  opposes  to  the  common  habit 
of  pipe-smoking  another  less  usual  practice,  that  of 
taking  a  syrupy  substance  extracted  from  the  leaf.  At 

[  139] 


44  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

best,  however,  we  are  here  confronted  with  a  distant 
forerunner  of  chewing,  not  with  chewing  properly. 

As  far  as  I  am  able  to  make  out,  it  seems  that 
tobacco-chewing  was  taken  up  as  a  prophylactic 
against  the  plague  which  was  epidemic  in  1665. 
Samuel  Pepys  writes  in  his  Diary  under  7th  June, 
1665,  "This  day,  much  against  my  will,  I  did  in  Drury 
Lane  see  two  or  three  houses  marked  with  a  red  cross 
upon  the  doors,  and  'Lord  have  mercy  upon  us'  writ 
there ;  which  was  a  sad  sight  to  me,  being  the  first  of 
the  kind  that,  to  my  remembrance,  I  ever  saw.  It  put 
me  into  an  ill  conception  of  myself  and  my  smell,  so 
that  I  was  forced  to  buy  some  roll-tobacco  to  smell  to 
and  chaw,  which  took  away  the  apprehension."  In  the 
year  of  the  plague  appeared  a  quarto  tract,  entitled 
"A  Brief  Treatise  of  the  Nature,  Causes,  Signs,  Pre- 
servation from  and  Cure  of  the  Pestilence,"  by  W. 
Kemp,  "Mr.  of  Arts,"  who  says  in  regard  to  tobacco, 
"It  corrects  the  air  by  Fumigation,  and  it  avoids  cor- 
rupt humours  by  Salivation;  for  when  one  takes  it 
either  by  Chewing  it  in  the  leaf,  or  Smoaking  it  in  the 
pipe,  the  humours  are  drawn  and  brought  from  all 
parts  of  the  body,  to  the  stomach,  and  from  thence 
rising  up  to  the  mouth  of  the  Tobacconist,  as  to  the 
helme  of  a  Sublimatory,  are  voided  and  spitten  out." 
Derby  was  visited  by  the  plague  in  the  same  year,  and 
at  the  "Headless-cross  the  market-people,  having  their 
mouths  primed  with  tobacco  as  a  preservative,  brought 
their  provisions.  It  was  observed  that  this  cruel  afflic- 
tion never  attempted  the  premises  of  a  tobacconist,  a 
tanner,  or  a  shoemaker"  (W.  Hutton,  History  of  Derby, 
1817,  p.  194). 

The  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  tobacco  as  warding  off 
the  plague  acted  also  as  a  new  incentive  to  the  increase 
of  smoking.  Thomas  Hearne  (1721),  the  antiquary, 
gives  the  following  curious  information :  "I  have  been 
told  that  in  the  last  great  plague  at  London  none  that 

[140] 


Tobacco-chewing  in  England  46 

kept  tobaconist's  shops  had  the  plague.  It  is  certain, 
that  smoaking  it  was  looked  upon  as  a  most  excellent 
preservative,  in  so  much,  that  even  children  were 
obliged  to  smoak.  And  I  remember,  that  I  heard 
formerly  Tom  Rogers,  who  was  yeoman  beadle,  say, 
that  when  he  was  that  year,  when  the  plague  raged, 
a  schoolboy  at  Eaton,  all  the  boys  at  that  school  were 
obliged  to  smoak  in  the  school  every  morning,  and 
that  he  was  never  whipped  so  much  in  his  life  as  he 
was  one  morning  for  not  smoaking."  Thomas  Pope 
Blount  (A  Natural  History;  containing  many  not 
common  observations,  1693,  p.  127)  writes,  "Diemer- 
brockins,  in  his  book  De  Peste,  very  much  commends 
the  use  of  tobacco  in  the  time  of  plague;  he  says,  it 
absolutely  cured  him  when  he  had  it ;  he  also  observes, 
that  almost  all  those  houses,  where  tobacco  was  sold, 
both  in  Spires  (a  city  in  the  Palatinate)  and  likewise 
in  London,  were  never  infected,  whereas  the  houses 
round  about  them  were." 

According  to  Penn,  the  chewing  of  tobacco  was 
common  in  the  reign  of  James,  when  gentlemen  car- 
ried about  with  them  small  silver  basins  as  spittoons, 
and  Monk,  the  principal  factor  in  the  restoration  of  the 
monarchy,  brought  it  into  fashion ;  but  no  documentary 
evidence  is  produced  by  him.  Apperson  comments, 
"General  Monk,  to  whom  Charles  II  owed  so  much,  is 
said  to  have  indulged  in  the  unpleasant  habit  of  chew- 
ing tobacco,  and  to  have  been  imitated  by  others ;  but 
the  practice  can  never  have  been  common." 

In  1689,  W.  Bullock  speaks  of  "two  rowles  of 
chawing  tobacco."  The  London  Gazette  of  1725  men- 
tions a  fellow  who  "commonly  has  a  chew  of  tobacco  in 
his  under  lip";  and  Smollett,  in  Roderick  Random 
(1748),  has  a  sailor  putting  a  large  chew  of  tobacco 
in  his  mouth.  The  World  of  1754  pokes  fun  at  the 
"pretty"  young  men  who  "take  pains  to  appear  manly; 
their  chewing  not  only  offends,  but  makes  us  appre- 

[  141  ] 


46  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

hensive  at  the  same  time  that  the  poor  things  will 
be  sick."  E.  Baillard  (Discours  du  tabac,  1693,  p.  92) 
refers  to  chewing  tobacco  (tabac  machicatoire)  as 
relieving  hunger  and  thirst,  but  does  not  say  that 
it  was  actually  used  in  France.  In  the  eighteenth 
century  a  common  device  of  tobacconists  was  three 
figures  representing  a  Dutchman,  a  Scotchman,  and 
a  sailor,  explained  by  the  accompanying  rhyme: 

We  three  are  engaged  in  one  cause, 
I  snuffs,  I  smokes,  and  I  chaws! 

Another  tobacconist  had  the  three  men  on  his  sign, 
but  with  a  different  legend : 

This  Indian  weed  is  good  indeed, 
Puff  on,  keep  up  the  joke. 
'Tis  the  best,   'twill   stand  the  test, 
Either  to  chew  or  smoke. 

The  promoters  of  the  cigar  in  Europe  were  the 
Spaniards,  but  they  were  exceedingly  slow  in  making 
their  product  known  to  the  other  nations  of  Europe. 
The  cigar  spread  in  Europe  only  in  the  first  part  of 
last  century.  English  authors  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, when  using  the  word,  feel  obliged  to  explain  to 
their  readers  what  it  means.  Thus  J.  Cockburn,  speak- 
ing in  1735  of  three  friars  at  Nicaragua,  says,  "These 
gentlemen  gave  us  some  Seegars  to  smoke.  These  are 
leaves  of  tobacco  rolled  up  in  such  manner  that  they 
serve  both  for  a  pipe  and  tobacco  itself;  they  know 
no  other  way  here,  for  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
tobacco-pipe  throughout  New  Spain."  Victor  Hugo 
(Les  Miserables)  describes  a  fellow  "carrying  in  his 
hand  a  powerful  cane  worth  two  hundred  francs,  and 
as  he  could  afford  everjrthing,  carrying  in  his  mouth 
a  strange  thing,  called  cigar."  The  first  cigar-factory 
after  Spanish  model  was  established  at  Hamburg  in 
1788  by  H.  H.  Schlottmann,  and  the  cigar  came  into 
general  use  in  Germany  about  1793.  ICant  (Anthro- 
pologie,  1798)  still  uses  the  Spanish  form  zigarro.  The 
Peninsular  War  was  the  occasion  for  both  French  and 

[142] 


Cigar  and  Cigarette  in  England  47 

English  adopting  the  cigar  from  the  Spaniards.  The 
importation  of  cigars  into  England  was  at  first  pro- 
hibited; after  the  peace  of  1815,  they  were  admitted 
at  the  duty  of  18  shillings  a  pound.  When  the  duty 
was  reduced  to  9  shillings,  the  import  reached  the 
figure  of  253,882  pounds  in  1830.  Cigars  then  were 
strictly  an  aristocratic  luxury.  Lord  Byron  (The 
Island,  1823,  Canto  II,  19)  has  sung  the  praise  of 
the  cigar,  and  has  simultaneously  furnished  the  only 
eulogy  of  tobacco  that  can  lay  claim  to  real  poetry. 

Sublime  tobacco!   which  from  east  to  west 
Cheers  the  tar's  labour  or  the  Turkman's  rest; 
Which  on  the  Moslem's  ottoman  divides 
His  hours,  and  rivals  opium  and  his  brides; 
Magnificent  in  Stamboul,  but  less  grand, 
Though  not  less  loved,  in  Wapping  or  the  Strand; 
Divine  in  hookas,  glorious  in  a  pipe, 
When  tipp'd  with  amber,  mellow,  rich,  and  ripe; 
Like  other  charmers,  wooing  the  caress. 
More  dazzingly  when  daring  in  full  dress; 
Yet  thy  true  lovers  more  admire  by  far 
Thy  naked  beauties — Give  me  a  cigar! 

J.  W.  Croker,  in  1831,  observed,  "The  taste  for 
smoking  has  revived,  probably  from  the  military  habits 
of  Europe  during  the  French  wars ;  but  instead  of  the 
sober  sedentary  pipe,  the  ambulatory  cigar  is  chiefly 
used." 

The  cigarette  was  introduced  into  England  by 
British  officers  who  had  served  in  the  Crimean  Cam- 
paign of  1854-56  and  had  taken  to  the  cigarette  smoked 
by  their  French  and  Turkish  allies.  It  first  became 
fashionable  among  club-men  and  in  high  social  circles. 
Laurence  Oliphant,  both  a  man  of  letters  and  a  man 
of  fashion,  is  generally  credited  with  the  introduction 
into  English  society  of  the  cigarette.  At  that  time 
smokers  made  their  own  cigarettes  as  they  needed 
them.  About  1865  or  1866  their  use  had  so  spread 
that  manufacturers  began  to  cater  for  cigarette 
smokers.  Even  then  they  employed  only  a  single  man, 
usually  a   Pole   or   Russian,   to   make   up   cigarettes 


48  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

occasionally.  They  were  perhaps  in  fashion  by  1870, 
and  the  social  history  of  smoking  in  later  Victorian 
days  is  marked  by  the  triumph  of  the  cigarette. 

TOBACCO  IN  FRANCE,  PORTUGAL,  SPAIN,  AND 

ITALY 

There  were  two  introductions  of  the  tobacco  plant 
into  France  during  the  sixteenth  century,  due  to  Andre 
Thevet  and  Jean  Nicot,  respectively.  Thevet  was  bom 
at  Angouleme  in  1502,  joined  the  Franciscan  order, 
and  studied  theology  without  acquiring  a  taste  for 
scholasticism.  Though  not  equipped  with  a  critical 
spirit  and  lacking  solid  knowledge,  he  was  fond  of 
travel,  being  stimulated  by  a  passion  for  inquiring  into 
curiosities,  extraordinary  or  little  known  objects.  In 
1555  he  accompanied  N.  Duardo  Villegaignon  as  chap- 
lain on  an  expedition  to  Brazil,  which  had  as  its  object 
to  found  a  French  settlement  on  the  river  Ganabra  or 
Santo  Januario  (the  present  Rio  de  Janeiro).  He 
spent  three  months  in  Brazil  from  November  1555  to 
January  1556,  taking  part  in  an  expedition  to  La 
Plata,  where  he  had  a  narrow  escape  from  hostile 
Patagonians;  a  Scotchman  saved  his  life.  On  his 
return  to  France  he  published  in  1557  a  book  on  his 
experiences  under  the  title  "Les  Singularitez  de  la 
France  antarctique,  autrement  nommee  Amerique:  et 
de  plusieurs  terres  et  isles  decouvertes  de  nostre 
temps."  An  English  translation  was  printed  in  London, 
1568,  under  the  title  "The  New  Found  Worlde,  or  Ant- 
arctike,  wherin  is  contained  wonderful  and  strange 
things."  This  book,  somewhat  bizarre  and  poorly 
organized,  contains  a  number  of  interesting  observa- 
tions concerning  the  country  and  the  life  of  the  natives 
of  Brazil,  but  two  thirds  of  the  volume  deal  with 
Africa,  Peru,  the  Antilles,  Florida,  and  Canada,  and  are 
compiled  from  oral  reports  or  printed  accounts.  In 
this  work  (fol.  60)  Thevet  describes  the  use  of  tobacco 

[144] 


Introduction  op  Tobacco  into  France  49 

under  the  name  petun  (the  Tupi-Guarani  word  pitwna 
or  pitima)  on  the  part  of  the  aborigines,  who  rolled 
the  leaf  and  wrapped  it  in  a  large  palm-leaf  to  the 
length  of  a  candle.  As  is  well  known,  the  natives  of 
Brazil  never  availed  themselves  of  the  pipe,  but  only 
used  tobacco  in  the  form  of  the  cigar.  Thevet's  descrip- 
tion is  perfectly  correct;  he  says  also  that  he  himself 
tried  the  novel  herb  with  some  bad  effects.  In  another 
passage  of  his  work  (fol.  153)  he  records  the  habit  of 
pipe-smoking  in  Canada,  but  he  does  not  mention  that 
he  took  the  plant  or  its  seeds  along  to  France.  As 
late  as  1575,  in  his  "Cosmographie  universelle,"  he 
advanced  the  claim,  "I  can  boast  of  having  been  the 
first  in  France  who  brought  the  seed  of  this  plant,  who 
sowed  it  and  named  the  plant  in  question  herbe 
Angoulmoisine  [after  the  place  of  his  birth].  Since 
then,  a  certain  individual  (un  quidam)  who  never 
made  any  voyage  has  given  it  his  name,  some  ten  years 
after  my  return." 

This  quidam  was  Jean  Nicot,  born  at  Nimes  in 
1530  as  the  son  of  a  notary  public  and  educated  in 
Paris.  He  was  French  ambassador  to  Portugal  from 
1559  to  1561.  One  day  he  went  to  see  the  prisons  of 
the  king  of  Portugal,  and  the  keeper  of  the  prisons 
presented  him  with  an  herb  as  a  strange  plant  brought 
from  Florida.  According  to  another  version,  it  was 
a  Flemish  gentleman,  Damian  de  Goes,  who  in  1558 
had  first  cultivated  tobacco  in  the  royal  garden  of 
Lisbon,  the  seeds  having  been  imported  from  Florida. 
Nicot  cultivated  the  herb  in  his  garden  in  1559,  being 
primarily  interested  in  its  medicinal  properties,  and 
accomplished  several  marvelous  cures.  When  the 
success  of  his  experirnents  was  assured,  he  forwarded 
specimens,  seeds  and  leaves,  to  King  Francois  II  and 
Catherine  de  Medici,  the  queen-mother,  with  proper 
directions  as  to  how  to  apply  the  drug.  From  1560 
tobacco  cultivation  began  to  spread  in  France.     On 

[146] 


60  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

his  return  to  France  in  1561  Nicot  offered  the  queen 
a  box  of  powdered  tobacco  which  she  employed  as  a 
remedy  for  headaches. 

In  1573  Nicot  pubHshed  in  collaboration  with  sev- 
eral scholars  a  French-Latin  Dictionary  a  copy  of 
which  may  be  seen  in  the  Newberry  Library,  Chicago. 
Here  we  meet  (p.  478)  the  word  Nicotiane  with  the 
following  definition:  "This  is  an  herb  of  marvelous 
virtue  against  all  wounds,  ulcers,  Noli  me  tangere 
[lupus  or  other  eroding  ulcer  of  the  face] ,  herpes,  and 
other  such  like  things,  which  Master  Jehan  Nicot,  be- 
ing ambassador  to  the  king  of  Portugal,  sent  to  France, 
and  from  whom  it  has  derived  its  name.  See  La  Mai- 
son  rustique,  book  chap.  "  The  blank  spaces  af- 
ter "book"  and  "chap."  are  not  filled  out.  The  book 
in  question  is  a  work  on  agriculture  published  in 
Paris,  1570,  by  Charles  Estienne  and  Jean  Liebault  or 
Liebaut,  who  gave  the  first  directions  for  the  cultiva- 
tion of  tobacco ;  they  also  point  out  its  medicinal  vir- 
tues and  refer  to  the  Indians  of  Florida  as  smoking 
the  leaf  from  tubes  (cornets).  Their  information,  ac- 
cordingly, is  based  on  Nicot,  not  on  Thevet.  Indeed 
Liebaut  admits  that  he  received  oral  and  written  ac- 
counts directly  from  Nicot,  which  are  embodied  in  his 
work,  and  which  were  introduced  to  the  English  pub- 
lic in  John  Frampton's  "Joyfull  Newes  out  of  the 
Newe  Founde  Worlde"  (1577).  He  consecrates  the 
name  nicotiane  in  preference  to  petum,  in  order  to 
honor  him  who  first  sent  the  herb  to  France. 

Olivier  de  Serres,  whose  "Theatre  d'agriculture" 
was  first  published  in  1600,  gives  credit  solely  to  Nicot, 
although,  as  will  be  shown  below,  he  must  have  been 
acquainted  with  Thevet's  work.  Official  France  has 
always  been  prejudiced  against  the  latter,  and  has 
heralded  Nicot  as  the  only  genuine  introducer  of  the 
plant.  In  the  "Biographie  universelle"  it  is  stated 
under  Nicot,  "The  Franciscan  Thevet  has  contested 

[146] 


Introduction  of  Tobacco  into  France  51 

to  Nicot  the  glory  of  having  enriched  France  with  to- 
bacco; but  his  pretention  has  not  been  favorably  re- 
ceived, and  the  name  Nicotiane  first  conferred  upon  to- 
bacco has  persisted,  at  least  in  scientific  speech.  It 
is  not  probable,  however,  that  Nicot  was  conscious  of 
the  importance  of  the  gift  which  he  offered  to  the 
queen-mother,  and  that  he  foresaw  that  this  gift  would 
some  day  be  thirty  millions  of  revenue  worth  to  the 
state."  In  Thevet's  biography  in  the  same  collection, 
his  claim  is  not  even  mentioned,  while  a  latent  animus 
crops  up  here  and  there :  he  is  characterized  as  "known 
for  his  credulity,"  yet  he  is  acquitted  of  ignorance  and 
lying,  and  is  credited  at  least  with  knowledge  of  lan- 
guages and  geography. 

On  the  other  hand,  Paul  Gaffarel,  in  his  introduc- 
tion to  a  re-edition  of  Thevet's  "Singularitez"  (1878), 
makes  this  strong  plea  on  behalf  of  his  hero,  "The 
legitimate  vindication  of  Thevet  has  never  found  a 
hearing.  The  designation  herbe  angovlmoisine  which 
he  had  the  right  to  impose  on  tobacco  was  denied  ac- 
ceptance, and  oblivious  posterity  continued  and  con- 
tinues to  thank  Nicot  for  a  benefit  for  which  it  is  not 
indebted  to  him.  We  may  be  permitted  at  least  to 
brand  this  iniquitous  judgment  as  false  and  to  pro- 
claim loudly  that  to  Thevet  and  solely  to  Thevet  the 
public  treasury  owes  its  most  magnificent  revenue 
and  the  majority  of  our  readers  a  daily  enjoyment." 
This  panegyric  is  biased  and  overshoots  the  mark,  for 
Nicot  cannot  be  ruled  out  of  court  completely.  The 
plain  truth  in  the  matter  is  that  France  owes  her  to- 
bacco to  Thevet  and  Nicot  equally ;  but  the  division  into 
the  two  camps  of  the  Nicotophiles  and  Thevetophiles 
demonstrates  sufficiently  that  the  subject  is  not  cor- 
rectly understood. 

It  is  perfectly  clear  that  Thevet  and  Nicot  intro- 
duced different  plants :  the  species  introduced  by  Thevet 
from  Brazil  can  but  have  been  Nicotiana  tabacum  (of 

[147] 


62  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

some  Brazilian  variety),  and  what  Nicot  introduced 
must  have  been  N.  rustica,  which  flourished  in  Florida, 
where  A^.  tabacum  was  at  that  time  unknown.  This 
condition  of  affairs  is  plainly  reflected  by  the  work  of 
Olivier  de  Serres  referred  to  above,  who  distinguishes 
two  species  (wrongly  taken  by  him  as  the  male  and 
female  plants),  one  with  large  leaves,  another  with 
small  ones,  the  former  being  A^.  tabacum,  the  latter  N. 
rustica.  De  Serres  says,  "One  holds  that  it  is  the  Pe- 
tum  of  the  Americans"  (the  term  "America"  at  that 
time  referred  to  South  America) ,  and  he  speaks  of  the 
"male  Petum,  also  called  tabac," — indications  that  he 
was  familiar  with  Thevet's  work,  although  he  avoids 
his  name.  The  fact  that  N.  tabacum  was  cultivated  in 
France  in  the  latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century 
goes  to  prove  that  Thevet's  claim  is  correct.  This 
settles  the  Nicot-Thevet  controversy  in  favor  of  an 
equal  share  of  honor  for  both.  But  as  N.  tabacum  is  the 
more  valuable  of  the  two  species  and  as  a  commercial 
type  is  now  exclusively  used  in  France  as  well  as  else- 
where, Gaffarel  is  right  in  linking  the  tobacco  revenue 
with  Thevet's  name. 

Nicot's  influence  at  court  appears  to  have  been 
overwhelming  in  view  of  the  cures  which  the  new  drug 
accomplished  in  the  royal  family.  It  is  curious  that 
Thevet  never  made  the  attempt  to  influence  the  court 
in  his  favor,  although  he  was  at  a  time  chaplain  of 
the  queen-mother  and  historiographer  and  cosmo- 
grapher  of  the  king,  subsequently  curator  of  the 
king's  curiosities   ("garde  des  curiosities  du  roi"). 

The  Tupi  word  petun  (also  spelled  petum)  intro- 
duced by  Thevet  from  Brazil  was  still  widely  used  in 
France  during  the  seventeenth  century,  as  expressly 
stated  by  Neander  in  his  Tabacologia  (1626),  and  still 
survives  in  Brittany  and  some  other  Departements  as 
betum,  betun,  or  butun.  Paul  Scarron  (who  died  in 
1660)  even  formed  a  verb  petuner.    In  Edward  Sharp- 

[148] 


Tobacco  in  France  53 

ham's  comedy  The  Fleire  (1615)  appears  Signior  Pe- 
toune,  "a  traveller  and  a  great  tobacconist,"  a  char- 
acter introduced  as  the  type  of  the  fashionable  smoker 
of  the  time.  In  honor  of  Nicot,  tobacco  was  called 
"herb  of  Nicot,  herb  of  the  ambassador."  As  Cather- 
ine of  Medici,  queen  of  France,  used  tobacco  powder 
for  headaches  and  was  instrumental  in  propagating 
the  cultivation,  such  names  as  "herbe  de  la  reine,  herbe 
medicee,  and  catherinaire"  were  temporarily  in  vogue. 
The  Scotch  poet,  George  Buchanan  (1506-82),  fired  a 
sarcastic  epigram  in  Latin  at  the  queen  for  her  attempt 
"to  adulterate  the  Nicotian  plant  with  the  name  of 
Medici."  Unfortunately,  worse  adulterations  of  to- 
bacco than  that  have  since  been  perpetrated  on  this 
world.  The  designation  "herbe  du  grand  Prieur"  is 
traced  to  the  Great  Prior  of  France  and  duke  of  Lor- 
raine, who  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  plant  as  guest 
of  Nicot  at  Lisbon  and  cultivated  it  in  his  garden  at 
home  in  1560 ;  he  delighted  in  taking  snuff  to  the  ex- 
tent of  three  ounces  daily,  and  as  Liebaut  states,  pro- 
pagated it  in  France  more  than  any  one  else  because  of 
the  great  reverence  he  entertained  for  the  divine  effects 
of  the  herb. 

The  first  French  pamphlet  on  tobacco  is  entitled 
"Instruction  sur  I'herbe  petun  ditte  en  France  I'herbe 
de  la  Royne  ou  Medicee:  et  sur  la  racine  Mechiocan. 
Par  I.  G.  P.  Envie,  d'envie,  en  vie.  Paris,  par  Galiot 
du  Pre  Libraire  iure:  rue  S.  laques  k  I'enseigne  de  la 
Galere  d'or,  1572."  The  author's  name  is  J.  Gohorry, 
and  his  booklet  of  32  pages  is  entirely  copied  from 
Monardes. 

Moliere,  in  his  comedy  Don  Juan,  ou  Le  Festin 
de  Pierre,  written  in  1665,  places  the  following  eulogy 
of  tobacco  in  the  mouth  of  Sganarelle  (Act  I,  Scene  1) : 
"Whatever  Aristotle  and  the  whole  philosophy  may  say, 
there  is  nothing  equal  to  tobacco;  it  is  the  passion  of 
the  gentlemen,  and  he  who  lives  without  tobacco  is 

[149] 


54  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

not  worthy  of  living.  Not  only  does  it  exhilarate  and 
purify  the  human  brain,  but  also  it  instructs  the  soul 
in  virtue,  and  with  it  one  learns  to  become  a  gentle- 
man. Don't  you  know,  as  soon  as  one  partakes  of  it, 
in  what  obliging  manner  one  uses  it  with  everybody 
and  how  delighted  one  is  to  give  it  away  right  and  left 
wherever  one  may  be?  One  does  not  even  wait  till  it 
is  requested,  but  one  hastens  to  anticipate  the  wish  of 
people,  which  shows  how  true  it  is  that  tobacco  inspires 
sentiments  of  honor  and  virtue  in  all  those  who  take 
it."  The  thought  is  similar  to  that  expressed  by  Bul- 
wer  Lj^ton  (Night  and  Morning,  1841) ,  who  says  with 
reference  to  the  pipe,  "It  ripens  the  brain,  it  opens 
the  heart ;  and  the  man  who  smokes  thinks  like  a  sage 
and  acts  like  a  Samaritan." 

In  France  tobacco  first  assumed  the  form  of  snuff. 
The  king,  Frangois  II,  was  treated  with  snuff  against 
severe  headaches  by  the  queen-mother,  and  the  cour- 
tiers hastened  to  imitate  the  practice.  Snuff  remained 
the  only  mode  of  taking  tobacco  on  the  part  of  gentle- 
men until  the  nineteenth  century.  In  1635,  the  free 
sale  of  tobacco  was  interdicted  by  Louis  XIII.  Only 
pharmacists  were  permitted  to  sell  it  for  medical  pur- 
poses on  the  prescription  of  a  physician.  In  1674  the 
cultivation,  preparation,  and  sale  of  tobacco  became  a 
state  monopoly. 

The  cultivation  is  now  authorized  in  twenty-five 
Departements,  but  the  cultivators  are  obliged  either  to 
sell  their  crops  to  the  State  or  to  export  them.  Who- 
ever desires  to  cultivate  tobacco  must  file  an  applica- 
tion to  the  Administration  of  Indirect  Taxes,  which 
furnishes  the  seeds  and  supervises  the  whole  business. 
No  one  has  the  right  to  grow  it  without  authorization ; 
the  prohibition  is  absolute,  and  even  extends  to  flower- 
pots. The  annual  production  amounts  to  25  millions 
of  kilograms.  The  preparation  and  manufacture  are 
superintended  by  the  General  Direction  of  the  Manu- 

[150] 


Tobacco  in  Portugal  and  Spain  66 

factures  of  the  State  (under  the  Ministry  of  Finance). 
The  sale  is  directed  by  the  Administration  of  the  In- 
direct Taxes. 

In  Portugal,  as  stated  (p.  49),  tobacco  was  grown 
in  1558.  Clusius  travelled  in  Spain  and  Portugal  for 
floristic  investigations  during  1560  and  1564-65,  and 
reports  (Exotica,  1601,  p.  310)  that  he  saw  in  Portugal 
the  plant  in  blossom  throughout  the  winter. 

Nicotiana  was  first  introduced  into  Spain  as  an 
ornamental  garden-plant  owing  to  its  beauty,  subse- 
quently as  a  medicinal  plant  on  account  of  its  real  or 
alleged  virtues.  This  is  clearly  expressed  by  Doctor 
Monardes  of  Sevilla  (1571)  in  the  introduction  to  his 
brief  treatise  on  tobacco,  which  has  served  as  a  model 
to  many  contemporaneous  and  later  writers  in  all  coun- 
tries of  Europe.  "This  herb  commonly  called  Tabaco 
is  a  very  ancient  herb  known  among  the  Indians,  chiefly 
those  of  New  Spain.  After  taking  possession  of  these 
countries,  our  Spaniards,  being  instructed  by  the  In- 
dians, availed  themselves  of  this  herb  in  the  wounds 
which  they  received  in  war,  healing  themselves  with 
it  to  the  great  benefit  of  all.  A  few  years  ago  it  was 
brought  over  to  Spain,  to  adorn  gardens  so  that  with 
its  beauty  it  would  afford  a  pleasing  sight,  rather  than 
that  its  marvelous  medicinal  virtues  were  taken  into 
consideration.  Now  we  use  it  to  a  greater  extent  for 
the  sake  of  its  virtues  than  for  its  beauty;  and  those 
certainly  are  such  to  evoke  admiration." 

The  species  described  by  Monardes  is  Nicotiana 
tabacum.  The  date  of  its  first  introduction  into  Spain 
is  not  exactly  ascertained,  various  names  and  dates  are 
suggested,  but  these  accounts  are  not  well  authenti- 
cated ;  the  exact  date,  moreover,  is  of  no  consequence, 
as  Spain  contributed  nothing  to  the  diffusion  of  the 
plant  over  Europe.  Spain  gave  Europe  only  two 
things — the  tobacco  gospel  of  Monardes  and  the  cigar. 
Monardes,   it  should   be  remembered,   never  was  in 

[151] 


66  Field  Museum  op  Natural  History 

America,  but  gathered  his  information  from  the  lips 
of  voyagers  and  adventurers,  who  returned  from  the 
newly  discovered  land  to  Sevilla.  The  Spaniards  never 
took  to  the  pipe,  but  in  accordance  with  the  practice 
of  the  aborigines  of  the  Antilles  and  Mexico  adopted 
the  cigar  and  cigarette.  Monardes  also  describes  the 
tubular  pipes  of  Mexico,  but  these  were  used  in  the 
Spain  of  his  time  only  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  re- 
lief from  asthma. 

Tobacco  made  its  debut  in  Italy  under  the  spon- 
sorship of  two  churchmen.  It  was  first  introduced 
into  Italy  in  1561  by  Prospero  Santa  Croce  from  Lis- 
bon in  Portugal,  where  he  was  engaged  on  a  diplomatic 
mission  as  nuncio  of  the  Pope.  He  was  made  cardinal 
by  Pius  IV  and  died  in  Rome  in  1589,  at  the  age  of 
seventy-six  years.  It  is  due  to  this  early  introduction 
that  Mattioli  in  1565  was  able  to  describe  the  plant, 
which  is  Nicotiana  mstica  (above,  p.  8).  It  then  be- 
came known  in  Italy  under  the  name  herba  Santa 
Croce.  Castore  Durante  (Herbario  novo,  Rome,  1585, 
p.  227)  writes,  "At  present  it  is  found  here  in  Rome 
in  abundant  quantity  thanks  to  the  illustrious  and 
reverend  Signor,  the  Cardinal  Santa  Croce,  who 
brought  it  from  Portugal  to  Italy."  He  devotes  a 
lengthy  notice  to  the  virtues  of  the  plant,  but  does  not 
say  that  in  his  time  the  leaves  were  smoked  in  Italy. 

Another  introduction  into  Italy  is  due  to  Nicolo 
Tornabuoni,  a  great  lover  of  plants.  When  he  was 
papal  nuncio  and  ambassador  of  Toscana  at  the  court 
of  France,  he  observed  there  the  medicinal  employ- 
ment of  tobacco  and  sent  seeds  to  his  uncle,  the  Bishop 
Alfonso  Tornabuoni,  at  Florence.  This  was  prior  to 
1574,  as  Cosimo  I  of  Medici,  who  took  a  deep  interest 
in  the  cultivation  of  the  plant  in  Toscana,  died  in  that 
year.  In  honor  of  its  godfather,  it  was  then  christened 
erba  tornabuona.  This  was  Nicotiana  tabacum.  A 
dried  specimen  from  this  early  period  is  preserved  in 

[152] 


Tobacco  in  Italy  57 

the  Herbarium  of  Ferrara  (1585-98),  labeled  tabacho 
over  Herba  Regina  ("tobacco  or  herb  of  the  queen"). 
While  Italy  thus  received  the  plant  from  Portugal 
and  France,  it  took  an  Englishman  to  teach  Italians 
how  to  smoke.  This  distinction  falls  on  the  shoulders 
of  the  Cardinal  Crescenzio,  who  about  1610  acquired 
the  gentle  art  of  smoking  in  England  or,  according  to 
another  version,  from  an  Englishman,  which  prac- 
tically amounts  to  the  same.  In  accordance  with  this 
precedent  smoking  and  snuffing  were  readily  adopted 
by  the  clergy  and  laity  as  well.  When  complaints 
reached  the  holy  see  from  Sevilla  that  both  ecclesias- 
tics and  seculars  smoked  and  snuffed  in  the  churches 
during  service,  Urban  VIII  issued  a  bull  excommuni- 
cating all  who  would  take  tobacco  in  any  form  in  the 
porches  or  interior  of  the  churches.  The  Catholic 
Church,  however,  has  always  been  wisely  tolerant  to- 
ward the  use  of  tobacco.  An  Italian  proverb  says: 
Bacco,  tobacco  e  Venere  riducon  I'uomo  in  cenere 
("Bacchus,  tobacco,  and  Venus  reduce  man  to  ashes"). 
As  in  France  and  Spain,  the  manufacture  and  sale  of 
tobacco  are  a  government  monopoly  in  Italy.  Cigars 
are  served  in  the  Italian  army  as  part  of  the  daily 
rations.  According  to  Penn,  Italian  cigars  are  "in- 
credibly vile,"  and  bad  as  are  the  cigars  sold  to  the 
public  by  the  Regie,  the  military  ones  are  worse. 

TOBACCO  IN  CENTRAL  AND  NORTHERN 
EUROPE 

The  English  were  the  most  active  propagators  of 
tobacco-smoking  over  many  parts  of  Europe.  We 
noticed  their  influence  in  Italy,  but  it  was  much 
stronger  in  Scandinavia,  Holland,  Germany,  and  Rus- 
sia. English  sailors  and  soldiers,  students  and  mer- 
chants carried  the  pipe  victoriously  wherever  they 
went.  English  students  at  the  University  of  Leiden 
appear  to  have  been  responsible  for  the  initiation  of 

[153] 


58  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

smoking  in  Holland.  William  van  der  Meer,  physician 
at  Delft,  who  cultivated  three  species  of  Nicotiana  in 
his  garden,  wrote  in  1621  to  Dr.  J.  Neander  at  Bremen 
that  he  did  not  become  acquainted  with  pipe-smoking 
until  the  year  1590  when  he  studied  medicine  at  Leiden 
and  noticed  the  practice  among  English  and  French 
students ;  he  tried  to  imitate  them,  but  the  experiment 
did  not  agree  with  him.  At  Hamburg  which  had  com- 
mercial relations  with  England  and  Holland  smoking 
was  known  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
about  1650  the  peasants  smoked  all  over  Germany. 
During  the  Thirty  Years'  War  English  soldiers  pro- 
pagated the  habit  as  far  as  into  Bohemia,  whence  it 
spread  to  Austria  and  Hungary.  The  older  German 
form  toback  (in  dialects  still  tuback)  and  Low  German 
smoken  (slang  schmockstock,  "smoking-stick,"  for  a 
cigar)  are  witnesses  of  this  early  English  influence. 
The  plant  itself  was  known  at  a  much  earlier  date, 
probably  through  Huguenots  emigrating  from  France, 
and  is  referred  to  in  the  correspondence  of  Konrad 
Gesner  of  Ziirich  in  1565.  During  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury tobacco  was  cultivated  in  many  parts  of  Germany, 
chiefly  around  Nuremberg,  in  Saxonia,  Thuringia,  Hes- 
sen,  the  Palatinate,  and  Mecklenburg.  Tobacco  was 
first  introduced  into  Norway  in  1616  when  the  country 
was  ruled  by  Denmark  and  treated  as  a  province  of  this 
state.  Christian  IV  of  Denmark  prohibited  the  im- 
portation of  tobacco  into  Norway  in  1632,  as  he  had 
learned  that  its  use  would  do  great  harm  to  the  sub- 
jects of  his  kingdom  Norway.  In  1643  he  rescinded 
this  order  and  levied  a  duty  on  tobacco  imports.  Dur- 
ing the  war  period  1807-14  attempts  were  made  to 
grow  tobacco  in  various  districts  of  the  country.  At 
present  a  few  farmers  along  the  west  coast  cultivate 
tobacco.  In  Sweden  it  was  first  planted  in  1724  by 
Jonas  Alstromer;  at  present  it  is  but  cultivated  to  a 
small  extent  in  the  neighborhood  of  Stockholm. 

[154] 


Tobacco  in  Russia  and  Turkey  59 

TOBACCO  IN  RUSSIA  AND  TURKEY 

The  story  of  the  early  fate  of  tobacco  in  Russia 
is  well  told  by  J.  Crull  (Ancient  and  Present  State  of 
Muscovy,  1698,  p.  145)  :— 

"Formerly  tobacco  was  so  extravagantly  taken,  as 
the  aqua  vitae,  and  was  the  occasion  of  frequent  mis- 
chiefs; forasmuch  as  not  only  the  poorer  sort,  would 
rather  lay  out  their  money  upon  tobacco  than  bread, 
but  also,  when  drunk,  did  set  their  houses  on  fire 
through  their  negligence.  Besides  (which  made  the 
Patriarch  take  a  particular  disgust  at  it)  they  used  to 
appear  before  their  images  with  their  stinking  and  in- 
fectious breath ;  all  which  obliged  the  Great  Duke,  ab- 
solutely to  forbid  both  the  use  and  sale  of  tobacco,  in 
the  year  1634,  under  very  rigorous  punishments;  to 
wit :  For  the  transgressors  to  have  their  nostrils  slit, 
or  else  to  be  severely  whipt.  Nevertheless,  it  is  of 
late  years  more  frequently  used,  than  ever  it  was  be- 
fore since  the  time  of  the  edict,  the  search  being  not 
now  so  strict  against  the  takers,  nor  the  punishment  so 
rigorously  executed.  Foreigners  having  the  liberty  to 
use  it,  makes  the  Muscovites  often  venture  upon  it  in 
their  Company ;  they  being  so  eager  of  tobacco,  that  the 
most  ordinary  sort,  which  formerly  cost  not  above  9  or 
10  pence  per  pound  in  England,  they  will  buy  at  the 
rate  of  14  and  15  shillings;  and  if  they  want  money, 
they  will  struck  their  cloaths  for  it,  to  the  very  shirt. 
They  take  it  after  a  most  beastly  manner,  instead  of 
pipes,  they  have  an  engine  made  of  a  cows-horn,  in 
the  middle  of  which,  there  is  a  hole,  where  they  place 
the  vessel  that  holds  the  tobacco.  The  vessel  is  com- 
monly made  of  wood,  pretty  wide,  and  indifferently 
deep ;  which,  when  they  have  filled  with  tobacco,  they 
put  water  into  the  horn  to  temper  the  smoak.  They 
commonly  light  their  pipe  with  a  firebrand,  sucking 
the  smoak  through  the  horn  with  so  much  greediness, 
that  they  empty  the  pipe  at  two  or  three  sucks;  when 

[165] 


60  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

they  whiff  it  out  of  the  mouth,  there  rises  such  a  cloud, 
that  it  hides  both  their  faces  and  the  standers  by. 
Being  debarr'd  from  the  constant  use  of  it,  they  fall 
down  drunk,  and  insensible  immediately  after,  for 
half  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  when  the  tobacco  having 
had  its  operation,  they  lep  up  in  an  instant,  more  brisk 
and  lively  than  before,  when  their  first  discourse  com- 
monly tends  to  the  praise  of  tobacco,  and  especially  of 
its  noble  quality  in  purging  the  head." 

It  is  curious  to  note  in  this  account  that  the  Rus- 
sians of  the  seventeenth  century  availed  themselves  of 
the  water-pipe  the  history  of  which  is  given  in  Leaf- 
let 18.  Presumably  they  derived  it  from  Turkey.  The 
Turkish  word  for  tobacco,  tutun  ("smoke"),  is  en- 
countered in  all  Slavic  languages,  as  well  as  in  Ruman- 
ian and  Neo-Greek.  It  seems  that  at  the  same  time  the 
water-pipe  was  also  fashionable  in  Germany.  At  least 
Georg  Meister  (Der  orientalische  Kunstgartner,  Dres- 
den, 1692,  p.  59),  when  he  observed  on  his  travels  the 
hooka  along  the  Arabian  coast,  remarks,  "As  is  also 
done  in  our  German  lands  by  some  tobacco-fellows  a 
la  mode." 

Better  days  came  for  Russian  smokers  under  Peter 
the  Great  (1689-1725) ,  who  during  his  sojourn  in  Eng- 
land and  on  the  continent  became  an  adept  of  smoking. 
He  determined  to  introduce  tobacco  into  his  country 
for  the  sake  of  the  revenue  it  would  yield.  The  Mar- 
quis of  Carmarthen  on  behalf  of  an  English  company 
offered  £28,000  for  the  monopoly  of  the  sale  of  tobacco 
in  Russia.  For  this  sum  the  syndicate  was  allowed  to 
import  one  million  and  a  half  pounds  of  tobacco  a  year, 
and  the  czar  agreed  to  permit  its  free  use  among  his 
subjects,  revoking  all  previous  edicts  and  laws. 

In  1698  Lefort  and  Golovin  signed  in  London  with 
Sir  Thomas  Osborne  (1631-1712)  a  commercial  treaty 
by  virtue  of  which  the  latter  was  to  receive  the  ex- 
clusive right  to  import  tobacco  into  Siberia :  up  to  1699 

[156] 


Tobacco  in  Russia  and  Turkey  61 

he  was  to  import  three  thousand  tons,  the  following 
year  five  thousand,  and  from  the  third  year  onward  six 
thousand  and  more,  with  the  obligations  to  pay  £12,000 
on  the  first  importation  and  to  supply  the  court  with  a 
thousand  pounds  of  tobacco  of  first  quality  annually. 
The  English  Consul,  Charles  Goodfellow,  in  Moscow 
was  Osborne's  agent.  In  1705  this  privilege  was  ab- 
rogated (cf.  Leaflet  18,  pp.  16-17).  English  tobacco 
was  then  prohibited  in  Russia,  not,  however,  Turkish 
or  Russian  tobacco. 

It  is  generally  asserted  that  tobacco  was  intro- 
duced into  Turkey  in  1605  under  the  reign  of  Sultan 
Akhmed  I  (1603-17)  ;  but  I  have  found  a  reference  in 
J.  T.  Bent's  "Early  Voyages  in  the  Levant"  (p.  49) 
from  which  it  follows  that  tobacco  and  smoking,  at 
least  from  hearsay,  must  have  been  known  to  the  Os- 
mans  several  years  before  that  time,  at  the  end  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  John  Dallam,  the  organ-builder, 
when  he  travelled  to  Constantinople  in  1599,  tells  a 
curious  incident  which  happened  at  the  time  his  ship 
met  the  Turkish  navy  not  far  from  the  Dardanelles. 
The  Turkish  captain  of  a  galley  boarded  his  ship  and 
desired  to  receive  as  a  present  some  tobacco  and 
tobacco-pipes  which  were  promptly  granted  to  him. 
The  Turk  accordingly  anticipated  to  find  tobacco  on  an 
English  vessel,  and  must  have  had  some  previous  ex- 
perience with  the  weed,  which  in  all  probability  had 
reached  Constantinople  through  the  trade  of  the  Le- 
vant Company  of  London.  Indeed  it  was  from  England 
that  tobacco  was  first  introduced  into  Turkey,  as  we 
learn  from  George  Sandys  (Relation  of  a  Journey  be- 
gun A.D.  1610.  Foure  Bookes  containing  a  Description 
of  the  Turkish  Empire,  1615,  p.  66) .  Sandys  visited 
Constantinople  in  1610  and  writes  thus:  "The  Turkes 
are  also  incredible  takers  of  Opium,  whereof  the  lesser 
Asia  affordeth  them  plenty:  carrying  it  about  them 

[167] 


62  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

both  in  peace  and  in  warre;  which  they  say  expelleth 
all  feare,  and  makes  them  couragious:  but  I  rather 
thinke  giddy  headed,  and  turbulent  dreamers ;  by  them, 
as  should  seeme  by  what  hath  bene  said,  religiously 
affected.  And  perhaps  for  the  selfe  same  cause  they 
also  delight  in  Tobacco ;  they  take  it  through  reeds  that 
have  ioyned  unto  them  great  heads  of  wood  to  containe 
it:  I  doubt  not  but  lately  taught  them,  as  brought 
them  by  the  English :  and  were  it  not  sometimes  lookt 
into  (for  Morat  Bassa  not  long  since  commanded  a 
pipe  to  be  thrust  through  the  nose  of  a  Turke,  and  so 
to  be  led  in  derision  through  the  Citie,)  no  question 
but  it  would  prove  a  principall  commodity.  Neverthe- 
lesse  they  will  take  it  in  corners,  and  are  so  ignorant 
therein,  that  that  which  in  England  is  not  saleable, 
doth  pass  here  amongst  them  for  most  excellent."  The 
English,  accordingly,  besides  introducing  tobacco, 
taught  the  Turks  also  how  to  smoke  it  from  pipes.  In 
1615  Pietro  della  Valle  observed  the  use  of  tobacco  at 
Constantinople.  At  first  it  met  with  violent  opposition 
on  the  part  of  the  Sultans,  and  the  most  cruel  punish- 
ments were  meted  out  to  smokers. 

De  Thevenot  (Travels  into  the  Levant,  pt.  1,  1687, 
p.  60)  tells  how  at  the  time  of  his  sojourn  in  Constan- 
tinople the  Sultan  used  to  walk  through  the  city  in  dis- 
guise to  see  if  his  orders  be  punctually  observed.  "It 
was  chiefly  for  tobacco  that  he  made  many  heads  fly. 
He  caused  two  men  in  one  day  to  be  beheaded  in  the 
streets  of  Constantinople,  because  they  were  smoking 
tobacco.  He  had  prohibited  it  some  days  before,  be- 
cause, as  it  was  said,  when  he  was  passing  along  the 
street  where  Turks  were  smoking  tobacco,  the  smoke 
had  got  up  into  his  nose.  But  I  rather  think  that  it 
was  in  imitation  of  his  uncle  Sultan  Amurat  [Murad 
IV,  1623-40] ,  who  did  all  he  could  to  hinder  it  so  long 
as  he  lived.  He  caused  some  to  be  hanged  with  a  pipe 
through  their  nose,  others  with  tobacco  hanging  about 

[168] 


Tobacco  in  Turkey  63 

their  neck,  and  never  pardoned  any  for  that.  I  believe 
that  the  chief  reason  why  Sultan  Amurath  prohibited 
tobacco,  was  because  of  the  fires,  that  do  so  much  mis- 
chiefe  in  Constantinople  when  they  happen,  which 
most  commonly  are  occasioned  by  people  that  fall 
asleep  with  a  pipe  in  their  mouth,  that  sets  fire  to  the 
bed,  or  any  combustible  matter,  as  I  said  before.  He 
used  all  the  arts  he  could  to  discover  those  who  sold 
tobacco,  and  went  to  those  places  where  he  was  in- 
formed they  did,  where  having  offered  several  chequins 
for  a  pound  of  tobacco,  made  great  entreaty,  and  prom- 
ised secrecy,  if  they  let  him  have  it;  he  drew  out  a 
cimeter  under  his  vest,  and  cut  off  the  shopkeeper's 
head."  From  about  1655  the  prohibition  was  relaxed, 
and  smoking  both  from  the  dry  pipe  and  water-pipe 
became  a  general  custom.  In  1883  a  government  to- 
bacco monopoly  was  introduced :  the  cultivation  is  free, 
but  the  crops  must  be  sold  to  the  government,  which 
conducts  the  sale. 

Dr.  Covel,  while  on  a  journey  to  Adrianople, 
writes  in  his  Diary  under  May  2d,  1675,  "Here  in  som- 
mer  many  come  to  take  their  spasso  and  recreation  in 
the  shade,  sitting  upon  carpet  with  tobacco,  coffee,  and 
pure  water,"  etc.  In  Bourgas  (modern  Lule-Bourgas) 
he  mentions  shopkeepers  selling  the  finest  tobacco- 
pipe  heads  that  are  to  be  found  in  Turkey  (Bent,  Early 
Voyages  in  the  Levant,  p.  173) . 

The  following  interesting  account  is  taken  from  H. 
Phillips  (History  of  Cultivated  Vegetables,  1822,  an 
undeservedly  forgotten  book)  : — 

"The  smoking  of  tobacco  is  carried  to  such  an  ex- 
cess by  the  Turks,  that  they  are  rarely  to  be  seen  with- 
out a  pipe,  and  never  enter  into  business  without  smok- 
ing, which  often  gives  them  an  advantage  over  the 
Christians  with  whom  they  have  either  commercial  or 
political  transactions,  as  they  smoke  a  considerable 
time  and  reflect  before  giving  a  reply  to  any  question. 

[169] 


64  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

To  visit  them  on  business  previously  to  their  morning 
pipe,  would  only  subject  the  intruder  to  their  caprice 
and  ill-humor.  An  ingenious  friend,  who  has  resided 
several  years  in  Constantinople,  and  had  opportunities 
of  associating  with  the  higher  classes  of  that  city,  as- 
sures us  that  two  thousand  pounds  is  no  uncommon 
price  for  a  Turk  to  give  for  the  amber  mouth-piece  of  a 
tobacco-pipe,  exclusive  of  the  bowl  or  the  pipe,  the  lat- 
ter of  which  is  made  of  a  branch  of  the  jasmine  tree, 
for  the  summer  use,  while  those  for  winter  smoking 
are  uniformly  made  of  the  branches  of  the  cherry  tree. 
In  order  to  obtain  them  of  a  regular  size  without  being 
tapering,  the  young  shoots  of  these  trees  have  a  weight 
affixed  at  their  extremities  to  bend  them  downwards, 
which  prevents  the  sap  from  returning  to  the  body  of 
the  tree,  and  causes  them  to  swell  equally  in  all  parts. 
The  rind  or  bark  is  carefully  preserved  to  prevent  the 
escape  of  the  fumes  through  the  pores  of  the  wood.  The 
wealthy  Turks  pride  themselves  on  the  beauty  and 
number  of  their  pipes;  and  the  principal  servant  in 
their  establishment  has  no  other  charge  than  that  of 
attending  to  the  pipes  and  tobacco,  which  are  presented 
to  the  master  or  his  guests  by  a  servant  of  an  inferior 
rank.  These  pipes  are  so  regularly  and  effectually 
cleaned,  as  always  to  have  the  delicacy  of  a  new  tube, 
while  the  German  pipe,  on  the  contrary,  is  enhanced 
in  value  by  the  length  of  time  it  has  been  in  use.  We 
are  told  by  the  same  friend  that  he  has  seen  among  the 
lower  class  of  Armenians  and  Jews  in  Turkey,  some 
smokers  who  could  consume  the  whole  tobacco  of  a 
bowl  twice  the  size  of  those  used  in  England,  and  draw 
the  entire  fumes  into  their  bodies  at  one  breath,  which 
they  discharge  from  their  ears  as  well  as  the  mouth  and 
nostrils." 


[160] 


Conclusion  65 

The  world-wide  diffusion  of  tobacco  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  phenomena  in  the  recent  history  of 
mankind  and  one  that  furnishes  food  for  many  reflec- 
tions. Within  the  short  span  of  three  centuries  tobacco 
has  firmly  established  itself  as  a  universal  necessity 
without  which  mankind  is  unwilling  to  live.  It  has  de- 
veloped into  one  of  the  greatest  industries  of  modern 
times,  resulting  in  statistical  figures  which  almost  stag- 
ger imagination.  Let  us  consider  also  that  during  the 
same  brief  period  coffee,  tea,  and  chocolate  obtained 
a  strong  footing  in  European  and  American  society, 
and  likewise  are  now  articles  of  international  industry 
and  commerce.  None  of  these  stimulants  was  known 
to  our  ancestors  of  three  centuries  ago,  and  now  they 
form  an  integral  part  of  world  economy.  The  associ- 
ation of  coffee  with  tobacco  is  very  close,  and  their 
alliance  has  stimulated  and  promoted  thought,  scholar- 
ship, literature  and  art;  it  profoundly  affected  social 
customs,  intensified  sociability,  and  paved  the  way  to 
the  era  of  humanism. 

Of  all  the  gifts  of  nature,  tobacco  has  been  the 
most  potent  social  factor,  the  most  efficient  peace- 
maker, and  a  great  benefactor  of  mankind.  It  has 
made  the  whole  world  akin  and  united  it  into  a  common 
bond.  Of  all  luxuries  it  is  the  most  democratic  and 
the  most  universal;  it  has  contributed  a  large  share 
toward  democratizing  the  world.  The  very  word  has 
penetrated  into  all  languages  of  the  globe,  and  is  under- 
stood everywhere. 

B.  Laufer. 


[161] 


66  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

BOOKS  RECOMMENDED 

Arber,  E. — English  Reprints.  James  VI  of  Scotland,  I  of  Eng- 
land. The  Essayes  of  a  Prentise,  in  the  Divine  Art  of 
Poesie.     A  Counterblaste  to  Tobacco.     London,  1869. 

This  booklet  contains  the  complete  text  of  the  Counterblaste 
and  valuable  documentary  material  relating  to  the  early  use  of 
tobacco  in  England  and  France. 

Brushfield,  T.  N. — Raleghana,  Part  II.  The  Introduction  of 
the  Potato  and  of  Tobacco  into  England  and  Ireland.  Re- 
port and  Transactions  of  the  Devonshire  Association  for 
the  Advancement  of  Science,  Literature,  and  Art, 
Vol.  XXX,  Plymouth,   1898    (Tobacco:   pp.   178-197). 

Fairholt,  F.  W. — Tobacco:  Its  History  and  Associations. 
London, 1859,  1876. 

Penn,  W.  a. — The  Soverane  Herbe,  a  History  of  Tobacco. 
London  (Grant  Richards)  and  New  York  (E.  P.  Dutton), 
1902. 

Apperson,    G.    L. — The    Social   History  of   Smoking.     London 
(Martin  Seeker),  1914. 
An  excellent  book,  both  critical  and  entertaining. 

Brodigan,  T. — A  Botanical,  Historical  and  Practical  Treatise 

on  the  Tobacco  Plant.     London,  1830. 

Written  from  an  Irish  viewpoint  and  interesting  for  the  his- 
tory of  tobacco  in  Ireland. 


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